


Enamored With You

by superglass



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1960s Music, Alternate Universe - 1960s, American Liam Payne, American Niall Horan, Blood, Blow Jobs, Bottom Harry, British Harry Styles, British Louis Tomlinson, But they pass as his own songs, Dancing, Dom Louis Tomlinson, Drunk Dancing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Established Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Famous Louis Tomlinson, Folk Music, Genderqueer Harry Styles, Greenwich Village, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Harry in Lingerie, Harry in Panties, Harry in women's clothing, Harry sings Joni Mitchell, Joni Mitchell songs, M/M, New York City, Non-Graphic Smut, Period-Typical Homophobia, Poor Harry Styles, Singer Harry Styles, Singer-Songwriter Harry Styles, Sort Of, Sub Harry, That's All I Can Think Of, Trigger Warnings, alcohol consumption, but im always pretty uncomfortable writing that bit, didnt add much bc us gays need period pieces with less blatant homophobia, except pronouns dont really change bc its the 60s, god its so many tags, hmmm, it's not even bdsm but they sing about harry being submissive so, its not really that important, liam is also just perpetually tired of Louis' shit, sorry if you hate that, sort of? not really - Freeform, tried to make it more tender/romantic, very subtle, well it's a little bit just a little bit detailed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superglass/pseuds/superglass
Summary: Louis’ about had enough. The couple sitting next to him at the bar gush over the performance, holding each other’s hands and grinning like Harry just convinced them to get married or something. He stands, and with fervor, makes his way to the other side of the bar, closer to the stage. Harry’s changing the key on his guitar, tuning it with the pegs, the long strings haphazardly sticking out of the end of it like they’d been altered last minute. Louis half-expects Harry’s guitar to have something corny written on it, ripping off Woody Guthrie with a hand-painted, “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”, and thinks, briefly, that it ought to say “THIS MACHINE KILLS BONERS.”orLouis Tomlinson is a well-known comedian living in the center of Manhattan. He practices his sets at the coffeehouse that made him famous. When Harry Styles, a poor, new folksinger trying to make it big, steals his slot at the club, Louis does everything in his power to chase him away, and ends up falling in love instead.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 101





	Enamored With You

To be honest, if Louis Tomlinson is anything, he’s consistent. He wakes up the same way every day, in the same bed in the same downtown apartment in the same building as always. He eats the same breakfast (a traditional English of sausage, eggs, toast and pudding) and drinks the same perfectly brewed cup of tea. Most days of the week he’ll pop a couple aspirin to cure the dull headache that always seems to creep up on him around 10am after drinking the night earlier. And he’ll leave the house the same way, swiftly, tossing his jacket over his shoulder and drumming his fingers along the side of his leg to a smooth rhythm as he walks. He’ll go down a couple blocks until he hits Bleecker street and buys himself a cup of coffee. In the afternoons, he’ll visit the Gaslight— his trusty coffeehouse where he usually tries out new acts before performing at bigger, more expensive bars and restaurants above 34th Street. Most nights, he’ll have an act there— at his favorite time, 10:45pm, when the crowd is just starting to get comfortable, and the house is full, and Louis’ had at least one whisky (neat) to calm his nerves (which he always gets, even this many years into the shows). After his act, if it went over well, he finds a comfortable place to sit and chainsmokes and drinks for a while until the people start to trickle out and the acts on stage become progressively harder to sit through without the urge to heckle. Then, he finishes getting plastered and takes a taxi-cab home. 

This is, of course, if his shows go smoothly; if they’re “appropriate”, one might say. Well, someone else’s definition of “appropriate” is astronomically, categorically different from Louis’. In fact, Louis would say that on the stage, virtually  _ anything _ he ends up saying is appropriate for him, because, well— it’s  _ comedy.  _ When you start putting boundaries on humor, it stops being funny. Right? 

So, if the act is deemed inappropriate—other words that have been used to describe him include vulgar, tasteless, unrefined, rude, indecent, lewd,  _ improper _ (if you were posh), naughty, filthy, and just downright offensive— then Louis usually steps right off stage into the arms of a big burly cop in a neat blue uniform who thrusts him into the backseat of his police car. This happens, actually, more times than Louis would like to admit, unless he’s trying to seem tough. Even with the handy work of his trustworthy manager and close friend Liam, who bails him out at the station nearly every time he’s arrested, it costs Louis quite the penny, and doesn’t do wonders for his image in the papers. 

Not that he needs some asshole critic at the  _ Times _ to tell him his worth. He doesn’t, but. Well, he’d get more gigs at the Copacabana if he didn’t have such bad press. 

Anyway, what Louis  _ means _ to convey is that his life is a timed and narrow schedule. It’s routinely, and he’s gotten very used to it, mind you. Four years living in Manhattan does that— hardens the edges of everything, makes your overall demeanor in life much busier and more fast-paced than you’ve ever been. Louis, who hails from Yorkshire, could’ve ended up something fatalistic, like a drunkard or a farmer, or God-forbid a  _ husband  _ if he’d kept back at home. In New York, things are different. For starters, it’s diverse, not only in all five boroughs but specifically in Manhattan— and even more precisely, below 14th street. Perhaps Louis’ favorite part of the city was the unique culture of people that resided in Greenwich Village. People of all different races, ethnicities, backgrounds, histories, the men who dressed up as women and the women who wore berets and read their poetry to rooms full of potheads. There were artists in the Village: writers, poets, painters, filmmakers, photographers, dancers, actors, musicians. It was unlike anywhere else Louis has ever been. Even last year, when he went around the country to the major cities, Boston and Chicago and Philly and Miami and Houston and Phoenix and Los Angeles and Seattle and Washington DC, nothing else compared to New York. It was the safe haven he didn’t know he needed. To put it both literally and metaphorically: Louis couldn’t escape it. 

If you asked him, “Louis, what’s the one place I should visit to see all of the beauty of Manhattan at once?” he’d tell you: go to the Gaslight. 

Which is where he is now, at 10:40pm, five minutes until he’s called on. 

The bar is owned now by his close friend Niall, an Irish immigrant who only has the ghost of an accent left from his childhood. If you met him, though, he’d probably be the most Irish person you’ve ever met. Dusty brown hair that’s gelled back like Marlon Brando does in the movies, kind blue eyes that go wide and happy every time he looks at you, a loud bubbly laughter that fills the whole room even when Louis doesn’t deliver the joke right. Plus, and Louis doesn’t mean to be stereotypical here, but on a good night, Niall drinks like a fish. It takes a long while for him to get drunk, and he doesn’t aim to get plastered every night (he’s a responsible club owner and employee, thank you very much), but Louis can’t think of a time where he doesn’t see Niall with a pint in his left hand. 

“How ‘bout this fella?” Niall asks, pointing to the beatnik currently reciting his awful poetry to the club in a slow, dry voice. Louis positively can’t wait to wake the crowd up with his set in a few minutes. 

Louis turns to him and arches his eyebrows. “Where’d you pick him up, mate? Washington Square Park? No, wait— I’ll bet you went to Tompkins, didn’t you? Jus’ plucked him straight from a group of opioid addicts.”

Niall lets out a loud laugh, but under the steady drone of guests talking to their dates to ignore the god awful act, it goes unnoticed. “You’re funny. No, he came in the other day, and he was really polite, so. Gave him a slot.”

“Aren’t you charitable,” Louis deadpans, taking a final swig of his whisky before standing up. The beatnik finished his set, and now the MC, a classic old Italian New Yorker named Joe, goes up on stage to introduce Louis.

“That was very nice… very nice, very—  _ revolutionary…” _ _   
  
_

Louis straightens out the high collar of his turtleneck and turns to Niall, who’s finishing delivering another patron’s drink before glancing up to flash him a smile. 

“Look good?” Louis asks, fixing his fringe. 

Niall gives him a thumbs up and that’s enough encouragement on a sullen Wednesday night for Louis to confidently step up to the stage.

“Give it up for one of our long-time performers, our favorite comedian, Louis Tomlinson!” Joe calls out into the mic, and the crowd seems to perk up a bit at hearing his name. Since he hit the papers two years ago in ‘63, Louis’ become pretty well-known among people who follow comedians around the city. In fact, if he nailed one more nice critique from the Times, Liam says he’d get a sure chance on the Ed Sullivan show to perform a live set. 

That would be the dream, wouldn’t it?   
  
“Long-time performer? Mate, you’re making it sound like I’ve been doing this for fifty years,” Louis says, warming up to the mic, flexing his fingers around it. It earns him a few chuckles, so he continues. “That’s like something you’d say to an old fat man who’s lived in your building since before the Indians came here. He’s the one who stinks up the whole alleyway with cigars that don’t even smell like they should be called cigars. Don’t we all have that guy in our buildings?”

The crowd hums in response.

“I’ve got one, meself, and, get this, his name’s  _ Cornelius.  _ Y’see, I know this because his bat of a wife screams it at any given moment to try to pull him out of the window and make him do shit. Like, this one time, I looked out my window, right, and there he was, smoking his big fat cigar and drinking, and next thing you know I hear his wife scream, ‘ _ Cornelius _ !’”, he puts on a thick New York accent, “‘ _ The toilet’s all clogged again!’  _ And I swear to you, you could smell it from a mile away with your nose pinched.”   
  


The crowd makes a disgusted noise in unison to the thought, but it dies down into satisfied chuckles.    
  


He tacks a few more punchlines onto the joke, wringing it out like a washcloth, basking in the laughs that drip out of it. 

“Speaking of fat old bastards— Christmas is coming up. How many of you are going home to see your fathers?”

This earns a loud array of laughter, and Louis can pick out a few of his favorites— he does this often, even in the moment. He hears Niall’s usual hahaha’s, the ones he’s used to, a bubbly sort of sound from a young woman near the back, and, to his right, a loud squawk of laughter that almost catches him off guard. When he glances quickly over to pin a face to the sound, he can tell almost immediately. A man sitting to the side cradling a guitar case in his lap, in one of the worst seats in the house next to the bathroom, has a hand clamped over his mouth and wide eyes. In Louis’ quick glance, it’s almost endearing— he loves to see the reactive people, the responses he doesn’t predict. 

He finishes the set with gusto, after going on about a story from his childhood about having a birthday on Christmas Eve and delivering a few more vulgar jokes about random things he’s noted on recently. It’s not one of his best acts, he knows that, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s the Gaslight, for Christ’s sake. Louis could go up there and sit in silence for twenty minutes and still earn a laugh. It was that easy.

When he joins Niall back at the bar after the applause dies down, a telephone is thrusted into his hand.    
  


“Liam’s calling. Says something about a gig for this weekend,” Niall says with a shrug and leaves him to take someone’s order. Louis sighs and holds the telephone to his ear.

“What?”

“Louis, you know I love you, and I’d do anything for you—” Liam starts, in an apologetic tone Louis’ heard countless times before. His heart nearly sinks, and his face grows a bit red.

“Fuck, mate. What’s happened now?” he asks tiredly, slumping into a barstool.

“Randy just cancelled the gig. At the nice restaurant on the Upper East side. Listen,” Liam’s thick Brooklyn accent fills his ears, and he suddenly hates it. “I know you hate me right now—”

“Yeah, I do, actually.”

“—But he says it’s only because he doesn’t want a bad rep if you’re there. Lou, babe, you  _ know _ I tried to convince him, tried to talk his ear off, but he just wouldn’t listen.” There’s a sigh over the line, and Louis drums his fingers along the worn wooden edge of the bar in boredom. This is a call he’s gotten a million times before. “You’ve got to do at least a month of shows where the content isn’t too horrible— y’hear me, Lou? Can you do that? For me?”   
  


“Jesus, what are you, me mum?”

“Louis. Tell me you will. One month won’t kill you. We need some good press.”

Louis rolls his eyes at that. “All press is good press.”   
  


“Lou. Ed Sullivan press.”

This reminder makes Louis feel a bit embarrassed. He wonders for a fleeting moment what would happen if he performed what he did tonight on a show like Ed Sullivan’s. He’d probably be blacklisted for the rest of his life. It wasn’t even that  _ funny. _ Plus, it was performed for Gaslight patrons, so he can’t imagine the pure embarrassing silence he’d be given if he did it anywhere else.

“Alright, lad, alright. I’ll tone it down.” He sighs, and motions for Niall to get him another drink. “Just because you asked so nicely.”

“Thanks a bunch, kid,” is all Liam rushes out before the line goes dead. Louis replaces the phone and pushes it back over the ledge of the bar just as Niall slides him his drink. Now that he’s paying attention, the deep raspy voice of a folk singer fills his ears. He looks over his shoulder and notices the guy from before— the one who let out a sound like a quack at one of his jokes— on the stage with his guitar perched carefully in his lap and a funny looking hat atop his curls.

“Who’s this?” he asks Niall, who’s leaning over the counter already, listening intently to the music as he dries a clean glass with a dirty rag.

“New guy. Came in yesterday and played me some sweet, sweet tunes. He’s a folksinger or something. Writes his own stuff,” Niall explains, tacking on a shrug to the end as he stares ahead. Louis looks back as well, and tilts his head at the new boy. He’s a great guitar player, fingerpicking folky tunes Louis would expect to hear from the likes of Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie or one of those old Southerners who learned how to play a banjo when they were about six. But his voice was deep, smooth like chocolate, and somehow soothing over the twangy sound of his acoustic guitar, which looked so cheap that the strings had to be tied on last minute, and were hanging off the end in long white whiskers. 

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Niall whispers, just as the song ends, and Louis is watching the boy tune the guitar until it’s in the right key for his next song. As he starts it, Louis leans back, and whispers over his shoulder without breaking his gaze on the singer.

“Good enough to get an 11:30 slot on his first day? What’d he do, give you a blowie?”

Niall snorts, but makes a sound of distaste at the crude joke. “Don’t say that.”

Louis just shrugs and turns his head again, settling back into his seat. He doesn’t see why Niall’s so opposed to it. The singer’s got a pretty face— a bit feminine, even, soft cheeks and light eyes all complimented with a sharp, masculine jawline. And he’s got the perfect pair of lips which look like he’s either just finished snogging someone or he’s been biting them for the past fifteen minutes. Louis wouldn’t mind getting a blowie from a mouth like that, but he supposes he’s a bit more easygoing when it comes to who he wants to suck his dick. As he’s lighting a cig, he swears his eyes meet the boy’s, even just for a second, even as he’s tucked into the dim light of the side of the bar.

Maybe not.

He takes a few more drinks and when he’s nearly sloshed, he calls himself a taxi cab home, but not without collecting his share of the basket that’s passed around for tips at around 2am. It earns him about three dollars in change and a subway token, and he almost pockets it, before he looks up and gets a face full of the folksinger, whose features are much more striking so close up. He actually is biting his lip now, ribbing straight white teeth over it before meeting Louis’ eyes shyly. There’s a low silence between them for a moment, but Louis’ been drinking, so on impulse he decides to slide the change into the shy boy’s big, calloused hands. 

“Great show, mate. Great show for being so new here,” Louis slurs, reaching up to give him a pat on the shoulder, before his arm falls back to his side. The boy brightens up, his lips twisting into a smile and digging dimples into his cheeks, which Louis can’t seem to stop himself from reaching up and poking.

“Thanks, mate,” the singer says in return, and Louis recognizes his accent, and shoves his shoulder playfully.

“No fuckin’ way, are you English?  _ I’m  _ English.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Where from?”

The boy removes his silly little newsboy cap to ruffle his hair before replacing it again. “Uh, m’from Cheshire.”

Louis nods. “Cheshire, right. I’m from Yorkshire. South Yorkshire— Doncaster, specifically. Moved here about— when I was 18, yeah. Dropped  _ right _ out of school.”

The boy falls silent, watching Louis with intensely serious eyes, as if he’s memorizing every move he makes. 

“Yeah, well. Right. Anyway, better head out then. You buy yourself something pretty with that, love,” Louis motions to the change left in the boy’s hands. Then he reaches up and tugs lightly on a stray curl falling from the cap on the boy’s head, making his eyes widen as he looks down at Louis. “Maybe a new haircut, Curly.”

He hears him croak out a “Cheers,” just as he’s turning to leave, and smiles to himself.

  
  
  


*

  
  


From what you've heard already, you might suggest that Louis lives an unrefined life in a little hole of an apartment in the shittiest building in Lower Manhattan, crawling with drug addicts and rats. This is a misconception. You see, ever since Louis went on his country-wide “tour” of nightclubs last year, he earned himself a steady monthly income, and actually managed to not blow it all on booze and drugs. About six months ago, he bought himself an apartment on the top floor of a building in SoHo, which, yes, admittedly isn't the most flashy part of Manhattan, but it was a nice enough place to support himself without the fear of being infested with bed bugs. Well, that was still a legitimate fear, but.

He’s well off, is the point. In his closet, there’s a nice set of fresh-pressed suits for the uptown gigs. In his pocket, there’s enough change to drop in a homeless man’s cup as he walks down fifth avenue. If he wanted to, he could— and this is if he wanted to— buy a plane ticket to anywhere in the world just for the hell of it. Maybe even one to go home and see his mum and sisters.

(He wouldn’t, though; he hasn't seen his family since he was seventeen, when he'd been expelled from school for being caught fooling around with other men in the locker room, and subsequently kicked out by his father. It's not that big of a deal, really. Louis’ over it now. It's in the past. If he's close enough to someone to tell them about it, he'll play it off as a joke— because, in essence, that's what it was. He was a horny teenager at an all boys’ school. Who else was gonna get him off?)

That's beside the point.

So this whole comedy thing— it started out as a fun hobby. He moved to New York and got a job at a diner first, while writing the first drafts of screenplays to sell to filmmakers and producers around the city— none of which ever got made into substantial films or television shows. It was easy money, but when he learned about the club life of the Village, he started doing stand-up more seriously. It turns out British humor worked well for Americans who have never heard it before and can understand his accent. Plus, Louis thinks, New Yorkers aren’t so different from Englanders in the grand scheme of things. Sure, the rich ones can be a bit annoyed at some of his more absurd jokes, but that was just basic class differences. For the most part, their humor shared similarities.

That’s what made him stand out from other nighttime comedians, Liam tells him. “Your accent’s perfect— it’s easy enough to understand, and it makes the things you say that much funnier to the bozos in the crowds.” It’s partially true. His accent coupled with his great comedic timing and skilled way of crafting jokes are what makes him stand out. And also, his horrible sailor talk.

No one loves him, though, like the Villagers. After about two weeks of playing horribly boring gigs at venues, fulfilling his promise to Liam to be less vulgar to get good press, he trudges down the street and slips into the Gaslight.

It’s sort of an unspoken rule that if he’s around, he goes on at 10:45— doesn’t matter who else is in the lineup. Niall knows the crowd will like him more anyway, so he fits Louis into that slot despite having to bump everyone else back. Like Louis said, he’s nothing if he isn’t consistent.

But tonight, of all nights, is different.

It starts when Niall notices him from across the club and waves to him with a cheery smile.    
  
“Louis, how ya doin’?” he asks as Louis sinks into a barstool. 

Louis sighs. “Yeah, I’m alright, mate, I’m alright.” As Niall slides him a glass of brandy, he asks, “Am I good for 10:45?”

Niall’s mouth does a slight hiss as if this question is tricky for him to decide upon. “Hmm. Lou, yanno I love ya, but…” He leans forward on his elbows, which are exposed by the rolled sleeves of his button-up and a bit dirtied. “10:45’s all filled up right now. You think you could go right after?”

Louis blanches. This never happens. Louis’ a fan favorite in this place. It’s like turning down Frank Sinatra to play at the Paramount Theatre. Completely unheard of. “What do you mean, it’s all filled up? Can’t you just push whoever it is back one slot?” Seriously, that’s all the poor lad had to do. It’s not that hard.

Niall hums. “Yeah, but the new kid— y’heard him last time you were here— his name’s Harry. The ladies here  _ love _ him, man, I mean they’re all over him. Reckon he could be the next Paul Anka or somethin’ if he didn’t play all those sappy folk songs. Anyway, he pulls in a great crowd these past few weeks. The fastest I’ve ever seen someone get fans here. Well, they’re not hardcore fans, but—”

He drones on, talking Louis’ ear off, but Louis can’t seem to focus.  _ Harry.  _ It was the lad he’d been so nice to the last time he came here. The thought of Harry, some new singer who’s barely been here a month, taking over  _ his _ slot— it positively irked Louis.

“Can’t you just ask him if he can go after me? Niall, that’s  _ my _ slot.”

Niall’s mouth clamps shut as if it’s mechanical, and he ponders the question in his head. “Hmm. I can go ask.”

Louis watches him place down the glass he was drying and disappear into a small crowd of tables towards the back. If he squints and cranes his neck up higher, he can see Niall bend down to speak to Harry, who has a serious look on his face as he talks. It fills Louis with an unknown, jealous rage. When Niall comes back behind the bar, he’s got an apologetic look plastered on his face.

“No luck, man. He says he’s gotta get out of here by midnight, and an 11:30 slot is too late.”

“Fuckin’ hell.”

Niall lifts his palms: it’s out of his control. Which, Louis thinks, it really  _ isn’t, _ he could have easily kicked this dumb Harry bloke with a little kid’s curfew back a slot, he just didn’t want to. Whatever twisted method of persuasion this kid has makes Louis’ stomach flip in frustration. 

“I’m sorry, man. Hey, listen, one slot behind your usual isn’t that bad, I promise.”

And technically, this should be true, Louis’ just a stubborn son of a bitch who can’t admit that it's okay if someone else goes before him. 

So he reluctantly sits through the boy’s set, burning through the rest of his cigarettes and impatiently waiting for his turn to go up on stage. What angered him, maybe more than getting his slot taken away from him, was the fact that this kid—  _ Harry— _ was actually  _ good. _ Like, Louis wasn’t a big folksinging beatnik, but he can recognize good music when he hears it. Niall’s right: if he sang something rock’n’roll and doo-woppy, like the new cats from Liverpool, or even if he had a rockabilly thing going like Elvis Presley, he could make it big on the music scene.

He thinks about saying this in passing when he goes on to do his own set, but his frustration and slight (though he’d never admit it) jealousy keeps him from complimenting Harry, who steps off the stage with his guitar swept up in his arms and a big, dimpled grin on his face. 

He does, however, slip in a few biting jokes about folksingers during his monologue. 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


“What are you so pissed for?” Liam asks one morning, taking a gigantic bite of his reuben sandwich. They’re comfortably seated in an authentic Jewish diner, one of Liam’s favorite places to eat breakfast at when he's in Manhattan. Louis enjoys their potato pancakes, but everytime he asks for tea they mess it up in some way (Honestly, how hard is it to mess up tea?), so he stopped asking long ago, opting for a scorching cup of coffee with two too many sugars in it. 

Liam swallows his bite and licks around his messy mouth, Louis scrunching his nose. “It’s not like the Gaslight earns you any profit.”

“Well, yeah, but the Gaslight is  _ my  _ place. It’s where I started… and now, s’like, he’s the new favorite. All because he sings some sappy love songs.” He tries not to sound childish, but fails, rolling his eyes and poking his potato pancakes.

“That’s not fair for him. He’s just starting out, now. Other people need their time to shine, too.” Liam gulps down a sip of orange juice and turns his sandwich around in his fingers to find the best spot to sink his teeth into. “Maybe you should let go of the Gaslight for a bit, buddy. Leave it in the past for now.” He chomps down on the sandwich, and, through a full mouth, adds, “Focus on bigger things.”

Louis simply scoffs and turns his face away, not bearing to watch Liam wolf down the meat sandwich like he’s starving. The diner is bustling with people on a morning like this; old Jewish men puttering in and out with their canes like they’ve been doing it every morning of their entire lives; working women stopping in at the bar for a fresh cup of coffee, clad in blazers and below-the-knee skirts; and mothers and children eating their pancakes before their days start. It’s the perfect place for a classic New York manager like Liam, and his clients to discuss plans for the future, briefcases propped open onto the counters.

Liam audibly swallows, and finally places his half-eaten sandwich down for the first time since it was ordered to their table. Louis glances at him, resting his chin on his hands and raising his eyebrows in anticipation.

“Speaking of bigger things…” Liam starts, dabbing a napkin over his lips. “You should start looking into doing another big tour show, babe. The last one did fantastic, yes, but now that you’re on the scene in those cities, you need to stay fresh in their minds, yeah? I don’t need no one-hit wonders here.”   
  


Louis nods, his eyes unfocused as they rest behind Liam’s shoulder at the entrance of the diner, where people filter in and out through the rush hour of the morning. “Mhm.”

“If you’re ready to do that, you let me know and I’ll get right on booking venues. Haven’t done any schmoozing to club owners in forever. If not, then you need to prepare. Up your repertoire. Come up with a better, funnier set. One that you like.”

“One that I get to repeat every night for three months?”   
  


“Exactly.” Liam points two fingers at him and replaces the napkin in his lap, going in for another bite of his sandwich. “You read my mind, Lou.”

Louis hums noncommittally, glancing back to the entrance at the same time a familiar figure steps through, wrapped up in an oversized corduroy jacket and a funny-looking newscap. Louis straightens in his chair, his eyes fixated on the tall, gangly body across the diner, who is now leaning his head up to squint at the menu as he takes the cap off his head. 

“You’ll never believe who just walked in,” Louis whispers across the table to Liam, unsure of why exactly he’s whispering when there’s no way Harry could hear them. “It’s the new kid. From the Gaslight.”

Liam drops his sandwich on his plate again and cranes his neck over his shoulder mid-chew, getting a good look at the singer before turning back to Louis. “Cute kid.”

Louis’ mouth blubbers. “What? Look at him! He’s a sleaze!”

“Again, don’t understand why you’ve got such a grudge against him— he’s in a totally different ballpark than you. It’s not like he’s your competitor. Far from it, actually.” Liam shrugs and goes back to his food, leaving Louis to glare at him before tuning his attention to Harry again. He watches as Harry orders something politely and sits down at the bar of the diner, setting his guitar to rest next to him on the floor, and all he can see is the back of his broad shoulders and curly head. He’s chosen the seat farthest from anyone else at the bar, tucked into a corner against the wall, where waiters and waitresses swarm in and out with food platters and coffee mugs.

As Harry’s shrugging off his coat, showcasing the thin white shirt underneath and the contracting muscles of his shoulderblades beneath the fabric, Louis feels Liam kick his shin under the table.

“Huh?”

“I said,” Liam brushes the crumbs from the corner of his own mouth, “you’re borderline obsessed, Lou. Leave the poor fella alone. He’s probably just looking for a job to be able to feed himself.” He pauses, bringing the sandwich back up to his mouth, then— “At least he’s not a rent boy, or something.”

Louis scoffs a laugh, glancing over at Harry— who’s clean shaven, despite dressing like a hobo— and tilts his head at Liam, eyebrows raised in doubt. “He might be.”

Having had enough of Liam’s attempts to make him empathize with the weirdo folksinging giraffe of a bloke who stole his slots at the Gaslight for the past four weeks straight, he stands. “Anyway, I’m  _ not _ obsessive. It’s called being persistent. M’not gonna leave him alone, and if he doesn’t like it, he can go to a different nightclub. Maybe even a different borough.” He gathers his coat and slips his sunglasses over his nose. “In fact, I’m gonna go bother him right now.”

Through a slow bite of his sandwich, Liam mumbles, “Please don’t make me contact your lawyer.”

“Ta ta, Lee-lee.” Louis taps him on the nose and straightens up, making a beeline to the empty seat next to Harry at the bar, where he’s quickly being served a steaming cup of tea.

As he approaches him, he tries to think of a funny quip to say about him, a teasing comment, and actually has a few in his queue, but he practically forgets them all as he plops down onto the seat. All he can manage after opening his mouth to speak is, “Tea’s right shit here, you’re better off drinking straight out of the Hudson if you want anything good, mate.”

The younger boy next to him jumps at the sound of his voice, resembling a scaredy-cat, and his head whips towards Louis in surprise. “O-oh.”

Louis stares ahead, watching the dishwashers in the back start to scrub a tub of dirty dishes beside the sink. The quick-working washer goes through three and a half plates before Louis properly turns to Harry, who’s already staring at him with wide green eyes that make him look like he’s a child, all innocuous features too big for his face.

“What are you doing here, anyway? Thought you lived in the Village.”

The boy’s lips open and close, as if they aren’t quite connected to his brain or lagging behind, fumbling over his words. “I, uh… Dunno. I mean, yeah, I live in the Village. I like, um. I like good Jewish food. And, this place’s gotten recommended to me, so…”   
  


“Never seen someone I know from the Gaslight anywhere above 14th street,” Louis quips, smiling slightly.

Harry frowns. “That doesn’t mean they don’t come here. Villagers aren’t barred from exiting the Village.”

“I know, it’s just uncommon. That is— unless there’s some sort of pothead poetry convention in Central Park.” Louis gives him a cheeky grin. “Don’t get your knickers twisted, babes.”

Harry’s mouth is big and red and Louis finds his eyes slipping to stare at his lips for maybe longer than he should, thinking back to what Liam said about prostituting, before the feeling of guilt floods his stomach. His eyes drop again, down to where Harry’s hands are folded in his lap— politely, like a school student, the edge of his callaused finger tracing the inseam of his jeans.

“Speaking of your knickers…” He leans in close to Harry, whose lips are now pressed into a tight pout in anticipation. “Did you have a fun night out? You’ve forgotten to zip up your trousers, mate.”   
  


He recoils himself, bending instead over the table to grab a waitress’ attention for another cup of coffee as Harry scrambles to do up his trousers again. 

“Uh, thanks. For telling me,” Harry mumbles, his cheeks burning. The waitress delivers Louis’ coffee, as well as Harry’s order of fried-up dish resembling scrambled eggs.

“What’s that?” Louis asks, peering down at the food as Harry begins to dig his fork in it, sticking it in his mouth tongue-first.

“Matzah brei,” Harry answers through a mouthful of the eggy matzo, blinking over at Louis innocently.

“Are you Jewish?”   
  


“No.”

“Hm. And you’d rather have this over a traditional English breakfast?”

Harry tilts his head curiously, an amused smirk on his face at Louis’ insistent questioning. “If you don’t like Jewish food, why are you here?”

Louis swallows a swig of his hot coffee, but forgets that he didn’t put sugar in it, and scrunches up his nose in distaste. “Me manager makes me come here for meetings. They’ve got good latkes.” 

Harry hums, forking another bite of the matzo, saying nothing. Louis stares at his profile, at the pointy slope of his nose and the jut of his lips, the way his tongue peeks out under the fork through every bite. Decides to go for it, finally— enough chit-chat; he’s never been one to beat around the bush for too long.

“Is there a reason why you think it’s necessary to steal my time slot every night I’m at the Gaslight?” he confronts him, easing the blow by tearing his eyes away from the side of the boy’s face, training them instead on how his hands grip the fork delicately between long, guitar player fingers. Harry freezes, if only for a second out of shock, and drops his fork, the clank of it ringing in Louis’ ears as it hits the ceramic plate.

“Is there a reason why you find it necessary to make fun of me in every way possible in your sets?”   
  


Louis scoffs at the wry, low tone of Harry’s voice. “You can’t keep answering questions with questions. You’re not the interrogator, here, I am. I got here first.”

“I didn’t know it was your slot.”

“Bullshit.”

Harry’s jaw tightens, but instantly relaxes again as he takes another bite of his food. “I’m not trying to argue with you.”

“Why not? I think you should.” 

“I’m not—!” Harry shakes his head, his jaw twitching with each chew, his throat bobbing in a way that makes Louis’ mouth dry if he looks for too long. He catches his eye again, now a darkened green and a lot less genial. “Listen, I didn't move here to make enemies. I'm not trying to bugger it all up. I’ve got no reason to be mad at you— and I’ve certainly got no reason to, like,  _ steal _ anything that might’ve belonged to you. It just happened, like anything else happens. M’sorry that Niall wanted to give me the better time. S’not my fault.”

“It is  _ too _ your fault,” Louis says defensively, his face twisting up. “You’re the one who said you couldn’t play past 11:30 because you had to get home before mummy got mad at you for staying up past curfew.” He spits it out quickly. His mouth tastes bitter afterwards.

At this, Harry’s brow furrows, and he looks at Louis nonplussed. “What are you talking about? I never said that.”

_ Oh.  _ That makes Louis feel dumb. He recoils again, sitting back in the booth to sip at his cup of coffee, his eyes narrowing at the tiled wall across from him. Bloody Niall. Stupid fucking Niall. He supposes that’s it, then. He really isn’t Niall’s favorite performer anymore. 

He stays quiet for a moment, before saying:

“Well, it won’t last, you know.”

“What won’t?” Harry’s curious, deep drawl sounded, a calmness through the remains of rush hour. If he looks around, there’s still remnants left, leftover buzz: an old grandma with a scarf tied around her face and a wobbly cane; two twins hanging onto their mum’s long skirt, begging for a sweet treat; a group of businessmen in their monkeysuits, late to their jobs on Wall Street.

Louis scoffs. “Being a musician. A folk musician. If you wanted to get big, you’d be in a doo-wop band, or summat like tha’.”

He glances over just in time to see a deep frown set in on the younger boy’s face, a crinkle in his brow. “I don’t want to be in a doo-wop band. I mean, I like the music, but…”

Harry’s head lifts to peer over at Louis, as if he’s really contemplating his words, and suddenly Louis feels like he needs to apologize for everything he’s ever said to him, reassure him that one day he’ll be a shining star like Elvis and Frank Sinatra, but can’t seem to find the words.

The contemplative frown on Harry’s face falls, his mouth melding into a pursed line instead. “I don’t believe you. I can get big from this. Jus’ watch.”

Louis laughs. “Whatever you say, sugarplum.” He feels two heavy palms on his shoulders and his back immediately straightens.

Liam’s voice fills his ears. “Lou, buddy, I’m gonna head out, I’ve gotta get back to the office. Hey, you’re gonna call me when you figure the tour situation out, right?” Without waiting for an answer, Liam turns to Harry, who sits unhappily in the stool next to Louis, stabbing his fork into his matzo brei. “Hey, you’re the kid from the Gaslight!”

Louis rolls his eyes, as Harry perks his head up and politely shakes Liam’s hand. “Yeah, Harry Styles.”

“Wow, great stage name. I’m Louis’ manager, Liam. He’s been blabbing on about you for weeks. Think he’s jealous of you, man.”

Harry smiles fakely and without teeth or dimples, his lips pursed into a tight line as he blinks over at Louis, his hands falling back to his sides. “Is he?”

“Yeah,” Liam nods, then points to the plate before Harry. “Is that the matzah brei? Been meaning to try that here.”

“Yeah, it is,” Harry says, his eyes still trained on Louis, who practically slams his head down into his forearms.    
  


“Cool. Well, I better get going. See ya, Lou. Call me.”

Louis responds with a muffled grunt and picks his head up from his forearms, refusing to make eye contact with the man beside him.

“Jealous, Lou? Really? If you believe what you said, I shouldn’t be much of a threat to you at all.” Harry swallows down the rest of his food and his watery tea and hails the waitress, who clears it for him. He pays her in crumpled bills, but he’s quick and efficient, nimble fingers flipping through a weathered leather wallet and counting change in his palm. He leaves a small tip on the counter before standing up, sticking his left arm in his jacket.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go. S’been lovely talking to you, though.” Harry picks up his guitar, Louis watching him with a slightly dumbfounded expression as he isn’t sure how to deliver another biting tease, another joke, something to make Harry’s innate confidence dimmer. “You should use the whole jealousy thing in your next set. Sure the crowd will love it. They’ve been getting a little bored from all of the talk about how much you hate folksingers and your girlfriend wanting to leave you. It'd be nice for a change.”

Then he leaves. Disappears, just like that, leaving Louis floundering for the first time in his life. He isn’t sure what to do with himself.

_ Whatever. What-fucking-ever. _ Harry can go jump in a lake for all he cares. He doesn't need him, and he doesn't need the Gaslight. It's final: he’ll actually take Liam’s advice for once and focus on bigger things. Leave the Gaslight in the past…

  
  


*

  
  


This notion lasts a week and a half.

To be fair, Louis’ had a shit past couple of days. The night before, he had come home earlier than usual— usually, on weekday nights, you could find him in a nightclub downtown, drinking and smoking and listening to the acts perform. But last night, he came home early. 

Early enough to find his girlfriend— if you could call her that, Louis really only saw her, like, once a week at best, but she had a key to the apartment nonetheless—  _ sleeping _ with another guy. He tried to be civil about it, but he was already tipsy, and alcohol mixed with his emotions doesn't usually blow over well.

He almost swung at the guy, but then fell on his own face, and refused to move from the carpet until he left, threatening to call the police and tell them he had an intruder. The fall didn't hurt too bad, he was just a bit embarrassed, is all. 

After that shitshow happened and the homewrecker left, Paige began packing up all her shit— which, admittedly, wasn't very much at all— and argued with Louis as he kicked her out. It wasn't that he was very made she cheated on him, unless that anger came from his own bruised ego. Moreso that she used  _ his _ apartment and  _ his _ bed to do it. Which is just disturbing, considering she had her own room. 

She kept going on about how she wasn't  _ satisfied _ and how he was never  _ home _ and how they never went  _ out _ together and a bunch of bullshit, in Louis’ fair opinion.  _ Big whoop. _ Louis didn't see much of a problem with their relationship until she pointed every little issue out like they were red-striped figures in a  _ Where’s Waldo?  _ book. 

(“We don't even have  _ sex _ !” she’d exclaimed, exasperated. Louis’ face went blank in response. He’d been shacked up with her for a year now— sex hadn't even been on his mind most of the time. Or— if it was, it was never with her. He never thought much more of it than that.)

Well, after she left with all her shit in a big suitcase, Louis felt pretty hung up, mulling over the fact that Paige was probably the only bird who would’ve  _ wanted _ to marry him, and his mum probably would’ve liked her even though Louis didn’t care much for her at all. He drank the rest of the liquor he could find in the flat. Then he passed out.

He wakes up with a hangover that can’t go away despite his cures, plus a few missed phone calls from Liam, and realizes that he hasn't made any progress on the set he's gonna do for his upcoming tour that they've still got to plan. He groans into his hands and checks the clock on the wall.

Shit. How is it already 4pm? He hasn’t even eaten today, let alone left the house.

He groans again and instead of writing jokes, he takes a nap.

When he wakes up again at around 10pm, his headache has dimmed and he’s feeling energetic enough to get redressed, pulling on a clean-ish dark sweater and black trousers, fully prepared to avoid Liam’s phone calls for the rest of the day. 

As if by muscle memory, his feet take him down the few blocks to MacDougal, down the steps and past the Puerto Rican bouncer who knows him by name by now, who grins at him and slaps a heavy palm on his shoulder, says something in his thick accent about how he can’t wait to hear what Louis’ got to perform tonight.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Miss-ter Louis, how are ya?” the bouncer asks, mispronouncing his name.

“I’ve had better days,” he replies honestly, cracking a wry grin before shouldering his way into the coffeehouse. 

It’s dark, dimly lit like always, a permanent feature in Louis’ life— the one thing that never seems to change in his schedule. Well, that is— until Harry. The bastard. The absolute bastard. Louis really wants to sock him in his pretty face right now. 

“Louis!” Niall’s voice calls out from behind the bar. “How are ya, man!”

Giving him a limp shrug in return, Louis slips onto the last barstool open. It’s not often he comes on a Friday night; he usually has a gig in midtown or a dinner with Liam and a club owner to schmooze with them. Niall seems to understand his turmoil, quietly sliding him a fixed drink and turning to take someone’s order. 

The MC, Joe, is talking loudly into the microphone when Louis turns his head to look at the stage.

“...and my ladies, I know you all love him— the Gaslight’s own personal British invader, here’s  _ Harry Styles!”  _

The small crowd erupts in drunken cheers and cigarette smoke as Harry’s figure climbs onto the small stage. Louis sulks in the corner, rolling his eyes—  _ own personal British invader,  _ what the fuck was that supposed to even  _ mean,  _ Joe? God, this place is awful, fuckin’ braindead to think Harry’s anything like the new bands taking over the music scene right now, when he’s not even  _ close—! _

“Thank you all,  _ so  _ much,” Harry’s low drawl rings through the scratchy microphone. Louis wants to smack the grin right off his face. “It’s so lovely to play for you all. I’m— uh, only gonna play a few songs tonight, so…”

He hikes up his guitar onto his lap, tuning it with precision, then starts to fingerpick, and if Louis were closer he’d be able to see the pinkness at his joints, the pale skin on the back of his hand, nearly translucent enough to see the bluish veins and the bones contracting with each pluck at the strings.

“This is a song I wrote about, um, a few weeks ago? I think, so it’s relatively new. S’called,  _ All I Want.” _

He strums with more confidence, crescendoing, his voice weaving easily through the notes of the country-folk ballad as he goes. Louis scoffs— this geezer and his bloody folk songs. They must be the only things he knows how to play, for Christ’s sake. And he  _ wrote _ this one? It sounds— well, the lyrics are— 

“ _ I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling,”  _ he starts off his voice deep and smooth like honey or melted chocolate. “ _ Looking for something, what can it be?” _

His voice cuts through the crowd like a sharp knife cuts through the thickness of a dense loaf of sourdough bread. They fall silent, women’s hands clasped in front of their hearts, cooing at him as if he’s worth anything with these sappy lyrics, men bobbing their heads along in interest. Louis  _ hates  _ him.

“ _ Oh, I hate you some, I hate you some— I love you some, oh…”  _ The strumming quiets, if only for a second, as Harry lifts his head and peers around the crowd, wandering green eyes searching, as his red lips open again to sing. “ _ I love you when I forget about me. I want to be strong, I want to laugh along…” _

Louis glares at him, hoping Harry can feel the daggers from across the room. Seemingly, he does— Harry’s gaze finds Louis hidden in the corner of the bar, and stays fixed there for an uncomfortable amount of time, making Louis’ body heat up with anger, frustration— something else. Harry seems to be challenging him, asking him to respond, his eyebrows quirking up in interest as he sings his next line.

_ “I want to belong to the living, alive, alive, I want to get up and jive— want to wreck my boots in some jukebox dive—”  _

Louis tears his eyes away, tries to force himself to stop listening. He calls for Niall’s attention and asks for another drink, and the Irishman obeys, filling up Louis’ glass to the brim in his haste.

“He's a load of shite,” Louis tells Niall, dunking back his drink and wincing at the burn in his throat as Harry runs through the bridge, strumming his guitar loudly.

“He's alright,” Niall says defensively, his eyebrows cinched together as he fills up Louis’ glass for a third time. “He writes all these songs himself, you know.” 

“ _ Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me, baby? So I hurt you too, then we both get so blue…” _

“Yeah, big deal,” Louis replies sarcastically, giving him a sardonic grin.

_ “Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling, it's the unraveling… _ ” 

Louis whips his head toward the stage, and there’s that word— jealousy. 

The song ends with Harry strumming dismal chords, a sort of pained thread in his brow as he goes, then he lifts his slightly flushed face to the crowd again on the last chord. He glances to the back— to Louis— briefly, an amused smirk on his lips, before the patrons at the bar and the tables erupt in applause.

“Thank you, thank you.”

The applause continues, drowning out Harry’s voice momentarily, and Louis scoffs as loudly as he can when a few guests give him a standing ovation.  _ Christ.  _ Are they numb? 

Louis’ about had enough. The couple sitting next to him at the bar gush over the performance, holding each other’s hands and grinning like Harry just convinced them to get married or something. He stands, and with fervor, makes his way to the other side of the bar, closer to the stage. Harry’s changing the key on his guitar, tuning it with the pegs, the long strings haphazardly sticking out of the end of it like they’d been altered last minute. Louis half-expects Harry’s guitar to have something corny written on it, ripping off Woody Guthrie with a hand-painted, “ _ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”,  _ and thinks, briefly, that it ought to say “ _ THIS MACHINE KILLS BONERS.”  _ But the body of the guitar is blank, just old scratched wood that was once probably glossy with varnish.

The crowd is quiet as Harry tunes. Louis feels the frustration bubble up in his chest, a little devil at the back of his tongue testing him, coaxing him to spit out some sort of snarling remark and— 

“You gonna play us another folk song, darling?” he spits, quite literally, stumbling into the crowd, his hip hitting the back of a patron’s chair and sending a shock of pain up his back. A few people turn around and shush him, like little disciples of Harry, defending his every move.

Harry, though, is silent, his eyes flicking to Louis immediately, staring him down as if that will make him go away. It might have, actually, if Louis wasn't so wasted— his gaze is intimidating.

“Gonna play us another? And you’re gonna do it tomorrow, too, right? And the next day? And the next fuckin’ day after that?”

Women in the crowd continue to shush him, or gasp at his crude language.

Harry stares at him.

“Why don’t’cha? Play us— give us  _ ‘Long Black Veil! _ ’ Play  _ ‘Long Black Veil _ !’” he shouts, now only a meter before Harry, his voice catching on the microphone and making it resonate through the room, bouncing off of the walls. A beatnik woman glares at him, her narrow eyes cutting daggers through him.

“What are you looking at? You like him that fuckin’ much, do ya?” He glances back up at Harry, whose jaw is tightened, his fingers stiff on the neck of the guitar, but still unmoving. “Seriously, mate, what do you  _ do  _ to these women? D’you fuck them after every show or summat like that? They’re fuckin’  _ obsessed  _ with you.”

He thinks he hears Niall call his name faintly, but his attention stays fixated on Harry, testing him with a quirk of his brow and another shout of “Huh?” to coax an answer out of him.

Harry shakes his head as if in disbelief, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “Can you just— can’t you just leave, if you hate it so much?”

“ _ No.”  _ Louis stands straighter, but his legs feel a bit like jelly, and he grips onto the back of someone’s chair for leverage. Slurring his words slightly, but trying to appear more put together, he adds, “I wanna know. D’you fuck all the women here? Huh? That who you write all your bloody songs for?”

A hand claps on his back, sharp and firm, and when he looks over his shoulder he recognizes Niall’s dirty short fingernails. “That’s enough, Louis,” he says, pulling Louis backwards. Louis goes with him, but not without a bit of a fight, shouldering and elbowing into Niall’s firm chest, staring ahead at Harry as he shouts.

“God, I hate fuckin’ folk music. I fuckin’  _ hate folk music! Get off me!” _

The last thing he remembers before blacking out again is being thrown out onto the cool pavement, calling Liam on a payphone, and falling asleep in the back of a cab.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s just, he figures he had been banned from the Gaslight forever and his whole career is over when he wakes up in Liam’s house the next day. Liam, who’s up at arse-crack of dawn every morning, shakes his shoulder roughly to wake him, seemingly having had enough of Louis’ shit. 

This is evident in the constant stream of complaints flooding from Liam’s mouth the moment Louis snaps into consciousness again.

“...can’t fucking believe you woke me up— one in the morning!— and made me come and get you like I’m some sort of nanny, you know how disheartening that is?! I was  _ sleeping,  _ next to my  _ wife—” _

“How is Susie, by the way?” Louis quips with a worn voice, rubbing his eyes and his sore shoulder, sitting up on the couch he must’ve been thrown onto last night.

“She’s fine. Got fuckin’ pissed at me when I had to  _ leave the house at one in the god damn morning,  _ though _!”  _

“Right. Tough.” He stands, finally, cracking his back, and the headache starts to seep into his skull. He’s not familiar enough with Liam’s house, a modest two-story in Queens, to know where he hides his aspirin. Instead, he fumbles around his pockets for a cigarette, and—

“Shit,” he curses. Liam’s mouth snaps shut, his bleary morning eyes glancing at Louis over his shoulder as he fixes a mug of coffee for himself. Louis notices two mugs on the counter, and a kettle boiling on the stovetop, and preens. Liam’s too much of a considerate fuck to  _ really _ be mad at him. 

“What?”

“I, um…” He tries to grin, tries to lighten the mood. “Might've left my jacket at the Gaslight.”

“ _ Fucking hell, Lou!”  _ And it sends Liam barreling back into his stream of grievances. “I don’t fuckin’ need this right now! You know, Niall called me last night, too! Called me while I was in the middle of pulling on a pair of fuckin’ underwear—”

“Oh, so  _ that’s _ what I interrupted.”

“—so I could get a cab to come get you! You know what he said to me? He said you were  _ heckling  _ the  _ new guy!  _ Heckling the new guy! Like a fuckin’ dickhead! Who  _ does  _ that, Lou?! I leave you alone to go make a new set, and you get all depressed and fuckin’ take off some poor guy’s head!”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Louis says exasperatedly, throwing his palms up. “I was drunk! I didn’t know what the fuck I was saying!”

“–God, Lou, can’t you leave him alone? He’s done nothing to you, and you hate him!”

Liam putters around the tiled kitchen angrily, his worn moccasin slippers slapping against the cold floors with each step, as he pulls a teabag out from the cupboard to dunk in the second mug of hot water before finally thrusting it into Louis’ hands.

“Can’t believe you,” he mutters, effectively ending his rant.

  
  


*

  
  


“I’ll apologize,” Louis decides on a whim on his cab-ride home. It’s a quiet, contemplative drive, one that he’d insisted that Liam didn’t have to come with him back to Manhattan on.

The thing is, he’s not really sure how to. Apologize, that is. Like, does he just say it— “ _ I’m sorry”?—  _ or should he lengthen it, explain why, make it more sincere? Should he take Harry out for breakfast as an apology, skip the stupid words and bribe him into accepting that Louis’ not that much of a dick as he seems? Or should he tell someone else, instead of having to face the boy, like ask Niall to pass it on. The latter’s already scratched off his list— he remembers he’s got to apologize to Niall, too.

And it hits him that after this, Niall probably— no, definitely— won’t let him have sets there anymore. 

“I’m going to apologize,” he repeats to himself, firmer now. The cab driver glances over his shoulder.

“You alright, sir?” the foreign accent calls from the front seat.

“Yeah, I'm alright.” He’ll apologize.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s early, about eight-thirty, when he’s back downtown, the cab driver letting him off with a friendly wave goodbye. Louis stands before the club and feels his chest tighten with anxiety. He’s never been quite good at making apologies. 

He musters up enough courage to trudge down the stairs, but the door is shut, the bouncer out of sight, and he considers going home and dealing with this another day or maybe even not at all. Maybe he’ll just leave his jacket, which of course has his wallet in it, in the Gaslight forever. 

His wrist twitches to twist the handle of the door and it pops open easily, of course it does. Does Niall really keep this place unlocked all night? Is he not worried about intruders? Odd duck, that one. 

He keeps it ajar, the only source of light filtering in through the basement aside from a few windows on the side where the street is. The coffeehouse is empty, silent, a strange juxtaposition from the roar of the crowd, and of Louis’ heckles, last night. He’s prepared to tip-toe his way over to the bar and find his jacket and get the hell  _ out  _ of there, scrapping his entire plan to apologize now that he might be near an intimidating and undoubtedly angry Niall, but as he pads over to the bar, he hears something besides the creak of the wooden floors beneath him. 

Half-thinking it’s rats, or some sort of varmint, he walks faster, scrambling for his jacket around the bar. Listening closer, however, as he rounds the corner, he finds it’s coming from the booths, and it’s not rats or squeaky mice or anything of the sort— it’s  _ snoring.  _ Snoring. 

Must be Niall, he assumes, but still cranes his neck to peer over the side of the last booth in the rows of tables, tucked in the corner and blocked by the bar for any view of the stage. He catches a glimpse of the figure, snoring peacefully on his side, but instead of the gelled blond hair, he catches sight of a mop of dark curls, and— it’s not Niall. Fuck.

In haste, he nearly sprints to find his jacket, catching it draped over the lip of the bar, but in lieu of grabbing it he knocks over a glass, successfully shattering it into a million pieces on the floor. The sound rings throughout the room and he hisses, muttering curses as he steps out of the way of the glass, craning his neck to see if the man had woken up.

“Niall?” a familiar deep voice calls from the booth, and—  _ fuck, fuck, fuck _ , Louis needs to get out of here, he needs to leave, he doesn’t think he can even bear to look at Harry after last night. His ears burn red in embarrassment, and he hangs his head, attempting to shield himself from any view the wandering green eyes can get of him.

It doesn’t work.

“Oh.”

He looks up, pursing his lips, completely and utterly embarrassed to be under Harry’s gaze again.  _ Harry,  _ who must’ve  _ slept here _ , and now Louis feels fucking  _ awful  _ that he’d ever tried to turn Harry’s sets to shit when he clearly doesn’t even have enough money to live in an apartment.

On a whim that he can only attribute to his habit of  _ never being fucking serious about anything _ , he winces through a grin, and says, “Rough night?”

Then, at the deafening silence that ensues, he clears his throat uncomfortably. “Sorry—” His tongue is dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth like sandpaper. “Uh, I’m— sorry.”

Harry’s quiet, and when Louis dares to glance over at him, he finds that he’s not even looking back. He’s staring down at his hands dejectedly, a frown forming on his lips, assumedly remembering the awful words Louis shouted at him in front of everyone, and Louis thinks he might even see Harry’s cheeks turn pink at the thought.

“I’m an arsehole,” Louis murmurs, still meters away from the younger man, and stares holes into his feet, which are surrounded by shards of glass. “I’m fuckin’— about last, erm. Last night. I’m such an arsehole, and I’m sorry.”

It’s genuine, not sarcastic or biting or mocking or anything. He hopes, prays that Harry at least takes it that way. He doesn’t have to accept it, doesn’t have to even respond. In fact, Louis almost takes the silence as his queue to leave, until:

“I don’t fuck the women, you know,” Harry says so quietly Louis barely hears him.

“What?”

“I don’t fuck anyone. After shows. You’d said—” Harry coughs, his voice raspy and stuck in the back of his throat, sounding congested like he’s got hay fever— “You’d said I must shag all the girls after the show, and I don’t. Do that.”

Louis looks at him incredulously, dumbfounded that  _ that’s  _ what Harry wanted to make clear from last night.

  
Harry finally lifts his head to look at him, his eyes glassy and light. “I get that you hate me, mate, but— you didn’t have to do that, y’know. I mean, s’just— it was really embarrassing, s’all.”

“I don’t hate you,” Louis blurts, blinking at Harry. “Swear on my life I don’t. I mean— reckon I was just like you said. I was just a jealous prick. I don’t—” Quieter, he adds. “I don’t want you to think I hate you. Anymore.”

He steps around the glass and approaches the booth where Harry is half-laying, half sitting up in. He clears his throat when he's a meter away, and blinks at him.

“Um. Did you— sleep here?”

Harry nods silently, his gaze downcast, like a child who’s just been caught stealing the last biscuit off of the tray. 

“Right.” Louis shifts his feet, his discomfort painfully obvious. “Well— just— always? You  _ always _ sleep here?”

Another nod. Louis feels the guilt boil up in his stomach and he can't take it, he just  _ has _ to say something.

“Well— where do you take a bath? Can't do it here, there's no shower.”

Harry lifts his head, his eyes slightly narrow as he stares back at Louis. “Well, I'll go down to the YMCA—”

Louis snorts loudly, echoing through the basement, cutting Harry off. “Jesus Christ,” he shakes his head.

“What?” Harry bites back, defensively. “You're the one who asked. I s’pose sometimes I'll be over at— um, a friend’s place and take one there but— it’s more convenient at the Y, and…”

He trails off, his body seemingly curling in on itself in humiliation, cheeks flaming. Louis can't believe it— Harry’s like a walking stereotype, with his outgrown curls, tall, thin figure, black beatnik roll-neck sweater— his denial to sleeping with women, admittal to regularly visiting the YMCA for reasons  _ other  _ than playing a game of basketball.

Shaking his head, Louis plops himself down in the booth, pressing his palms into the table.

“Listen, mate, you can’t just sleep in this place your whole life— I mean, Niall’d probably kill you if he found out about this, honestly—”

“He knows.”

“What?”

Harry sniffles, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. “Niall knows I stay here.” He shrugs. “He's been helping me out since I got here.”

Louis stares, dumbfounded again, his mouth propped open stupidly. He shuts it like a fish, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “Right. Fuckin’ hell.”

“What?”

“No, nothing.” Louis sighs. “I'm not gonna— I can’t just  _ let  _ you live in a basement—”

He cuts himself off, eyes dropping to the sparse hair on Harry’s chin and jaw. He gnaws on his lip, thinking. Something— he's not sure how to describe it— washes over him when he looks at the boy now, a protectiveness he didn't know he had. As though Harry is a starving kitten in an alleyway, he feels the need to take him in, to clean him, to keep him warm. 

“Um— why don't you stay with me, instead? I mean. It's almost winter, and this place hasn't got any fuckin’ heat, and you've got to go  _ somewhere _ , and—” He thinks back to last night, to the harsh words he spat at Harry, the embarrassment on the boy’s features when he was forcefully pulled away, still screaming, “ _ I hate fuckin’ folk music” _ — he might as well have shouted, “ _ I hate Harry Styles, everything about him!”  _

Harry is giving him a dubious look right now, staring at him with wide green eyes as though he just grew three heads. “Um.”

Louis shakes his head. “No, listen, I mean. Not forever, obviously and— like,  _ yeah _ , we’re strangers and I know you think I hate you even though I  _ don’t _ but I did make it seem like I did last—  _ ugh _ , last night, which was just so awful and again, I'm sorry about that but, this— I didn't know  _ this  _ and this isn't even out of pity, I swear, I do want to help you, make it up to you ‘cause—” His rambling ends when he sees Harry shake his head.

“I'm good. But thank you.”

Ever so polite.

“What?” Louis says dumbly.

“I don't need to stay with you. But thank you for the offer.”

“Erm— I— Are you sure?”

Harry nods curtly.

“Well— well, I'm just gonna—”

Louis stands, chasing awkwardly behind the bar, his hands scrabbling until he finds a pen and a napkin, and he scribbles down his address in what he hopes is legible handwriting before handing it to Harry. Harry, who glances at it with a wary expression, pockets it in his jacket as if it were a handkerchief, and nods at Louis again.

“Alright?” Louis says. Shrinking in on himself once more, as if he can't stand to meet Louis’ gaze, Harry gives a short hum in agreement.

“Right.” No matter how much he didn't want to, he tosses his jacket loosely over his shoulder and clears his throat again. “So, I'll, erm. See you around, then.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, then.”

If Louis walks all the way home with the image of the embarrassedly pink-cheeked, curly-haired boy behind his eyelids every time he blinks, he’ll never  _ ever  _ admit it. 

  
  


*

  
  


“Now, I wonder how many of you in the audience have ever pissed in the sink,” Louis starts, “...One time in your life have you ever pissed in a sink? Well, I'll tell you—”

“Nope,” Liam interrupts, shaking his head tersely. “Start again.”

Louis stomps his foot childishly, the wood flooring of his apartment creaking beneath his feet. “A-fuckin’-gain? Jesus, how many times—”

“It wasn't good enough!”

“ _ What  _ wasn't good enough?!”

“The start of it! You gotta— transition it well from the last part, it has to blend, you know, gotta be smooth,” Liam explains, his palms weighing the air, the smoke from his cigarette flowing in shaky grey lines.

They've been practicing a set Louis'd written late the other night after getting wasted with a friend. It'd started out small— a memory pulled from his teenage years back in Doncaster, when he’d get absolutely sloshed with school friends off of stolen alcohol and subsequently have to piss on someone’s front lawn. The original idea was quite funny: you drink too much, have to take a wee, find a nice bush, start pissing— then someone asks, “Hey, what are you doing, pissing in me bush?” Then you get in loads of trouble before even taking the damn piss.

Liam, though, ever so persistent, had heard the first draft, liked it, and pushed it to go in a completely different direction.

“Fine,” Louis says, recouping. He stands taller, stares behind Liam’s head at the blank wall, closing his eyes for a moment and imagining a large audience with shiny eyes and great big smiles, waiting on the edge of their seats for the next joke that tumbles out of his mouth. 

“Now, I wonder how many of you in the audience have ever performed an unnatural act,” he starts again, licking his lips, opening his eyes, grinning— “...like pissing in the sink?....One time in your life have you ever  _ pissed _ in a  _ sink _ ?”

He imagines the laughs, the giggles, subdued now but undoubtedly ready to become boisterous and uninhibited. He imagines the front row guests, the people he sends a wink to while he performs, or teases on as a spur of the moment improvisation if he knows they'll be a good sport about it; imagines men bending over and clutching their bellies in laughter, drunkards sputtering over their drinks when he delivers an obscene joke; imagines women tipping back their pretty heads in a laugh and covering their mouths as if they don't want anyone to know they found it funny, but they did. 

“I know a guy, right,” he continues, “he gets drunk a few nights a week, yeah? No lady at home to get upset with him— he's a bachelor, he's got it good. So anyway— he's got a roommate. Comes home one night, absolutely  _ wasted _ , I mean every symptom in the book— he can't fuckin’ stand straight! Comes home, goes  _ right _ to the kitchen sink, closest thing.”

He glances down at Liam, who’s nodding along, looking serious. He doesn't expect Liam to laugh, because he's already heard the punchline—  _ six times _ , for Christ’s sake, he’s repeated the same thing  _ six times _ — it's gonna drive him insane.

“The roommate’s one of those sober fellas, very straight, you know, erm— doesn't do that sort of thing often.” He grins. “He comes home, just— ready to piss in the kitchen sink.” A pause for laughter, even though the apartment remains silent, and Liam remains stoic on the couch across from him. “‘What are you doing?’ the roommate asks.” Louis shifts his body, drawing up his knee like a dog would by a fire hydrant. “‘Washing my leg.’” He straightens his body again, resuming the role of the uptight roommate. “‘Bullshit, you were wanking in the sink.’ ‘No, really, I’m washing my leg.’ ‘Why in the world are you washing your leg in the sink? Go take a bath.’ ‘Well, I…’ ‘You what?’ ‘I’ve got to piss in the sink.’ ‘You’ve got to piss in the sink.’ ‘...Yes.’”

Liam lets out a chuckle at the delivery, but schools his expression once more. 

“So,” Louis continues, “the fellow goes to the window ledge, see, pulls up the window, steps out onto the fire escape— people think he wants to commit suicide… All he wants to do is urinate… Next thing you know, people are calling hotlines, bringing the fuckin’ NYPD out on the street, calling for him to come down. A priest talks to him… Fire trucks appear… nets and ladders… Finally, the guy’s  _ mum  _ appears on the street below.” Louis mimics looking over the ledge of the window, leaning out of it and calling down. “‘Mum,’ he says, ‘All I want to do is have a wee.’ She goes, ‘Well go ahead, son, piss then.’ He goes, ‘I can’t, mum, there are too many people looking… I can’t piss when all these people are looking!’”

Snapping back out of his character, Louis hears Liam laughing now, and it spurs him on to finish the monologue, ending it with large gestures and expressive features— trying to get the imaginary crowd to love and adore him and—  _ laugh.  _

He’s out of breath by the time he finishes, and the satisfaction of landing it lasts seconds. Afterwards, he feels a bit empty, remembering, with much dismay, that this is only  _ one joke _ out of all the ones he’ll need to complete the full performance he’ll take on tour.

“Nice work,” Liam says, suddenly right beside Louis, clapping a heavy hand on his shoulder before disappearing into Louis’ kitchenette.

“You think it’s good enough? Final draft?” Louis says, optimistic. 

Calling out from the kitchen, voice muffled like he’s just stuffed it with food, Liam says, “Eh, could use a few tweaks but— could always do that when you’re up there.” He drifts back into the room, holding the crispy end of a baguette in his right hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. “The important thing is having it all down, you know, at least ten things you can swap between so you don’t get bored every night up there. Only need about five or six for a show but— well, you know how it goes.” He dismisses it with a wave of his bread. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Liam assures.

He sure fucking hopes so.

  
  


*

  
  


Being best mates with his boss admittedly isn't one of Louis’ greatest life choices. 

The way they met was unconventional: Liam, a young engineer from Brooklyn with a knack for collecting old comedy records hidden in the back of vinyl shops, had recognized Louis’ distinct voice whilst standing in the queue for, of all things, a ticket to see the film  _ West Side Story _ (when Louis tells people the tale of this fateful day, he often leaves out that detail). Louis was going to see it with his only friend in the city, as he had only been there a month at that point, Zayn. He'd been in the middle of a mouthful of complaints about the length of the line, how hungry he was feeling, how he'd run out of his last pack of cigarettes and needed to run to the shop but he was so  _ lazy _ and he really needed to see this film first, just to see what all the hype was, when out of nowhere:

“Wait a minute, I know that voice,” Liam had said, turning around in the queue, a confused quirk in his brow as he looked down at Louis— Louis, even then, was a scruffy little kid, with pants that were an inch too short and a bit too tight around his thighs and his only wool sweater he'd brought from England. No winter coat; no home.

“Erm,” Louis said, feeling uncomfortably targeted under Liam’s gaze. His face remained that way— stuck in a silly twist of confusion— before the lightbulb seemed to pop off above his head.

“Are you a comedian?”

Nonplussed, Louis had stared up at him. Then, trying to keep his cool, he sent a chuckle over to Zayn by his side. “I try to be.”

Zayn, coolly smoking his cigarette by his side, his hair swept up and his shoulders drenched in a leather jacket that made him look (to Zayn’s pleasure) a bit like an anarchist, had said in all his monotonous glory: “If you could call it that. He goes up and talks about jerking off for 45 minutes and then calls it a night.”

Liam snorted, adjusting the collar of his dress shirt— he always dressed nice, from the very beginning, but Louis remembers his first impression of Liam being, “ _ Shit, is this guy a millionaire?”  _ Not even close— every day Liam wore the same, overpriced suit made by some fancy Italian brand Louis couldn’t even begin to try to pronounce, but he was really just a normal, clean-cut kid from Brooklyn, who’d opted for a conventional day job that easily supported him and his wife. He hadn’t ever gotten the chance, thus far, to manage any sort of talent, though he’d dreamed of it since he was a little kid and his dad took him to see comedy films and Broadway shows. He’d never gotten the chance— until he met Louis.

And that’s what leads Louis (with a few other monumental bumps along the road) to right now, trying desperately to get tidied up and ready to leave before Liam swings around to pick him up.

Tonight, he’s supposed to accompany Liam and his wife Susie to a fancy dinner at a country club right outside of the city, in Jersey. It’s this really posh ordeal so that Liam can cosy up with a ton of club-owners and producers and important people who are undoubtedly affiliated with huge names in entertainment. (“I’m gonna be in the papers one day,” Liam’d said, “and  _ you’re  _ gonna be the huge name in the headline right next to your picture.”)

Tough luck, with the state of Louis’ hair right now. 

He’s tried combing it into the right style about fifteen hundred times, and it’s driving him mad, because he hasn’t even gotten around to shaving his scruffy-looking half-beard off yet. 

Admittedly, this is because he’d taken a nap at 4pm and didn’t set an alarm to wake up  _ before _ 5pm, so he woke up more than a bit behind in getting himself ready. He’d told himself this morning that this afternoon was all about him having a diva moment, pampering himself into looking acceptable to the rich men at the party, but, well. His plans went a bit askew. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he murmurs to himself, and musses up his fringe anyway— Fuck it. If the one-eyed motherfuckers at this event have anything to say about it they can go play with traffic, for all Louis cares.

Right. Now he’s got to shave.

This always takes a bit of time— Liam tends to reprimand him, saying the razors he uses at home are shit and he should just go down to the barber shop and get shaved there, but Louis’ a busy man, okay? He’s got more important things to do than sit for fifteen minutes while some old guy spends more time breathing in his face than shaving him.

Bickering to himself, Louis lathers his chin, jaw, and neck with shaving cream, the pearly white cream standing out against his olive skin. He’s halfway through shaving when the buzzer in his apartment goes off, a loud, obnoxious  _ bzzzzzzzzz!  _ that rings through all three-and-a-half rooms.

He groans, dropping the clogged metal razor in the bathroom sink before padding out of the room. Liam’s probably been waiting outside for ages, holding up a taxi for him to come down. It takes all of his energy not to snap when the buzzing insists, and he presses on the button to say, “You can come up and scold me, but I’m not ready yet.” 

Then he rushes back to the bathroom, hastily pulling the razor over his skin and washing it out with the water in record time. 

Instead of hearing the sound of Liam barging through the door shouting horrid things in the thickest Brooklyn accent he’s ever heard about how he’s gonna chop Louis’ head off and throw his body into the Hudson and blame it on the mafia, there’s a timid knock at his front door. He screws his face up, pulling one last streak over his neck and realizing he’d missed at least three spots plus his lengthy sideburns— and then leaves the bathroom once again.

He really,  _ really  _ does not expect to open up the door to see Harry Styles, with his silly newsboy cap covering half of his face, choking on a sob as he stands, helplessly, in the threshold. 

“Erm—” 

“Can I come in?” Harry blurts, sounding strained, before he lets out a small sob.

“Yes, yeah, of course,” Louis rushes to say, standing out of the way and letting Harry step in. It’s then he notices Harry’s got a brown, canvas backpack stuck on his back and his big leather guitar case in his hand. All of his belongings.

As he closes the door softly behind him and turns around to face the unexpected guest, Harry’s standing uncomfortably in the middle of the living room, knock-kneed, like he’s unsure of whether he’s allowed to sit down. His face is at least somewhat visible now, covered in tear streaks and— blood. Dried red blood is caked around his nose, painfully obvious now that he’s not covering his face. Louis gasps when he notices it, mutters a  _ “fuckin’ hell,” _ and flees the living room to grab a washcloth from the bathroom. The closest he can find smells strongly of his shaving cream no matter how he tries to ring it out in the cold water of the sink. 

When he beckons Harry, wordlessly, to follow him into the bathroom, the boy obliges. He winces as he sits on the white marble countertop, clutching his ribs, letting out a soft, low groan.

“Y’alright?” Louis asks softly, bringing the wet flannel up to his nose (not broken, he notices, just  _ very _ bloody), and pressing only gently against where it must hurt. 

“Yeah, um—” Harry clears his throat, and Louis watches as another tear runs over his cheekbone. “I— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come b-but I didn’t— I mean, like, I don’t—”   
  


“It’s fine,” Louis says, and waits for Harry’s permission to continue cleaning up the blood where it’s dried above his lips. “Don’t worry about it, honestly.”

“I—” Harry starts, but the washcloth rubs over his lips, effectively muffling his words before they have the chance to tumble out. “Okay.”

Louis grins, leaning over to ring out the washcloth in the sink and wash his hands. As he does, Harry squirms restlessly next to him, wincing as he goes, as if it’s painful just to sit down. His hands come up— long, meticulous fingers, clean cut nails— and worry over the buttons of his shirt until he shrugs out of it, leaving him in a thin white undershirt. Louis, watching out of the corner of his eye as he washes his hands, raises his eyebrows.

“Getting comfortable there, love?”

Harry’s head whips up, eyes wide. “Sorry, um— they just, they kicked me— do you have any aspirin?”   
  


“ _ Shit,  _ that bad? I thought it was just— a bar fight or something, where the fuck—?” Louis scrambles as he nervously babbles, pulling the mirror open with a screech to find the medicine cabinet behind. He overlooks his own pills— prescribed medication,  _ un- _ prescribed medication— and finds a little glass bottle of painkillers from the pharmacy. 

“Not a bar fight,” Harry murmurs. “It was— these men, at the Y. I was in the shower, and—” he sobs again, and as Louis pours three pills into his palm, he notices Harry shaking next to him. Not a nervous shake, a twitch of a hand or a restless muscle, but full-on  _ shaking, _ like he’s just gone into catatonic shock or something. When Louis dares to look at his face, mostly clean of blood except for a small red ring around one of his nostril, he finds Harry’s eyes screwed shut again, in a continuous cringe, holding back an entire sea behind his eyelids.

“Babe, are you—?”

And the dam breaks. Harry starts to sob violently into his hands, hitting his nose in the process and letting out a pained shriek. Louis stands, helpless, just a hair away from touching him, his palm out-turned with three clunky pills in the center, waiting to be swallowed. In a semblance of comfort, he lets the pills fall to the countertop and presses the warm palm into Harry’s clothed knee, squeezing gently as the boy cries.

Harry attempts to choke out broken apologies, but earns a soft shush from Louis, whose hand trails to Harry’s shoulder and pulls him forward in an uncomfortable, half hug. The height isn’t right, and Harry’s head knocks awkwardly to the side as he rests on Louis’ collarbone.

As it is, Louis stands through it, his palm heavy in the center of Harry’s broad back, thumb rubbing circles into the fabric of his wife beater. In time Harry’s breathing calms, thankfully, until all that’s left is dry sniffles into Louis’ shoulder, wet eyes and snotty nose marking his new shirt— the one he’s supposed to wear to the dinner tonight.  _ Shit.  _ He’s forgot about the dinner already.

Tonight is a shitshow.

After what feels like hours of Louis staring at his reflection in the mirror coupled with the back of the boy’s curly head, Harry detaches himself from Louis, wiping the back of his knuckles over his nose, eyes averted and staring into the corner of the bathroom. That is, until he remembers he’s in pain still, and reaches over the sink for the pills. He clears his throat, blinking down at the painkillers in his palm.

“Um,” he murmurs. “Have you got a glass of water? I don’t— I’m bad at taking, erm, pills.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis mumbles in reply, filling up a paper Dixie cup from beneath the sink.

Harry mumbles a soft thank-you and takes the pills, slowly— he’s got all the time in the world, it seems. Louis flips around and leans his hips against the counter, rubbing over his face, feeling the scratchy hair around his jaw. He murmurs an expletive, spinning back around to hastily shave the rest of his face, but the buzzer goes off once again, ringing through the apartment with a much louder, much angrier  _ BZZZZZZZZ! _

“Fuckin’ hell!” Louis hisses, dropping the metal razor in his sink with a clank and fleeing the bathroom, not without a glance back at a startled Harry, all wide green eyes and bare arms on the bathroom sink. “It’s— You’re fine, it’s me manager, I’m just gonna—”

When Louis opens the door, Liam stomps in indignantly, already halfway through a frustrated monologue at Louis’ expense.

“...You know, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, I told Susie, ‘maybe he’s already there, maybe we don’t need to wait for him!’ Until I remembered you’re too  _ incompetent  _ to take your own taxi to the fuckin’ country club, and so we’ve got to wait outside your building for half a fuckin’ hour, Lou, what the fuck?! I swear—”

Liam stops in his tracks halfway through his angered trek into the apartment, standing in the threshold of the bathroom, where Harry is presumably staring right back at him.

“Lou, what the fuck?” Liam’s head whips back around to face Louis. He’s got an expensive suit on, high-waisted trousers like he’s Cary Grant in a Hitchcock film, his toned flat chest covered by a crisp white button-up.

“Nice suit, Roger Thornhill,” Louis quips, shouldering past his manager to the bathroom sink.

“Why is— what were you— you know what, I don’t even wanna know.”

Slapping shaving cream on his jaw, Louis shoots him an icy glare. “I’m not ready yet.”

“When the fuck will you be ready? Next year?” Liam threatens another tirade, but pulls back, ears red from embarrassment as he acknowledges Harry’s presence. 

Louis silently scrapes the razor over his jaw, raising his eyebrows at Liam as if to say,  _ you’re funny, aren’t you?  _ Harry next to him, burning holes in the floor tiles, his cheeks burning bright red like a furnace.

After an agonizing two minutes of Louis shaving his face, Liam rubs at his eyes, exasperated. 

“Lou, I’m just gonna go without you, buddy.  _ Fuck.  _ We’re already so late. Yeah, I’m not waiting any longer.”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Mhm.”

Liam pivots on his heel, stomping back towards the door, his shoes clicking against the wooden floors of the apartment. Louis spares a glance at Harry, but earns nothing but an embarrassed aversion to his gaze. He follows Liam out.

“What the fuck is he doing here?!” Liam whispers at the door, too loud for Harry  _ not _ to hear.

“He needed help.” Louis shrugs uselessly. “He just, like, showed up.”

Liam stares back at him incredulously, shaking his head. “Are you holding him hostage?”

“What the fuck? No!”

“Whatever.” Liam grips the handle of the door, raising his eyebrows at Louis before opening it. “I’m mad at you. I—”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Asshole. I’ll call you tomorrow morning and tell you how this went.”

“Send me a postcard while you’re at it.”

Letting out a dry chuckle, Liam slams the door behind him. 

The wood of the door is dark and mesmerizing, and Louis finds himself staring at it for too long, pondering what the fuck this night has been. Honestly, was he dreaming or something? Had he had a fever? Was this a fever dream?

“Shall I go?” comes Harry’s low, timid voice behind him.

He whips around. “No!” Harry’s rubbing his bare arms over and over, trying to warm them, his trousers dirty at the knees. “No, not at all!”

_ Where else was he gonna go? _ Louis thought. He obviously couldn’t go to Niall’s or he’d be there now, and from all Louis knew Niall was his only option. Gnawing on his lip, Louis stares behind Harry, blinking at the closed door to the second bedroom in his apartment.

“Here, c’mere.”

He leads Harry into the spare room, which hasn’t been used since Paige left. There’s dust floating in the air, cardboard boxes of storage shoved into the corner. Old things Paige had left behind— slips for her dresses, embroidered sets of handkerchiefs, pretentious books and chess sets, things Louis really had no use for anymore.

On the bed lay a large shearling fur coat, a gift Louis had gotten her one Christmas after not knowing what to get her for ages. He’d picked up from Saks Fifth Ave on a cold late December night, the first coat on a rack of them that caught his eye. Paige had never worn it.

He clears his throat, nodding toward the bed. “You can sleep here. If you want. However long you— however long that you need.”

At the silence that ensues, he turns back to Harry, who’s staring in awe at the bed. “Really?” he mumbles.

“Yeah, really.”

Harry steps forward towards the mattress, thumbing over the pink quilt, inching towards the coat but not touching. His eyes meet Louis’, apprehensive and overwhelmed, asking permission. 

“You can have the coat, too, if you want. Pawn it, or something, I really don't care.”

Harry gasps. “Wouldn’t!” His palm spreads out over the lapel of the coat, head tilting curiously at it, resembling a mother with her child. It’s silly, really— it’s just a coat. “It’s a lovely coat. My— um.”

“What?” 

Harry glances back up at him, a grin pulling at the corner of his lips. “My mum used to have one just like this.”   
  


Louis just smiles, tilts his head at the boy, who is silently petting the fur coat like it’s living. He presses the inside of his wrist to his own forehead and— nope, this isn't a fever dream at all.

  
  


*

  
  


Harry is like a cat.

He disappears throughout the day and night, almost to the point of Louis wondering if he's ever gonna come back, but he always does. No matter where he goes— to the diner in the morning, the coffeehouses at night; out on the fire escape with his guitar and a cigarette on a warmer afternoon; to the park with his hat overturned for spare change whilst he plays— he always comes back, even if just for a moment.

He doesn't talk to Louis sometimes, for days at a time, speaks through occasional nods of his head and sleepy blinks over his morning tea. When Louis  _ does _ see him for longer than a few minutes, Harry’s gaze is never-ending, a languid stare as Louis makes himself a cuppa or a plate of horribly scrambled eggs in the morning, or as Louis writes in his notebook at the kitchen table and rehearses lines under his breath in the evening. 

He thinks, at first, it’s nothing— just some strange way of Harry to observe his surroundings, perhaps a way for him to clear his own apprehension for Louis. 

It's not. 

After weeks of living, quite awkwardly, in each other's spaces, Louis realizes that— Harry’s  _ attentive _ . He memorizes; he gives back. 

It starts when Louis wakes up one morning and pads into the kitchen with bare feet, scratching his bicep. Harry, already awake, sits at the kitchen table. Across from him, a steaming mug of tea made particularly for Louis, just the way he likes it. He raises his eyebrows at it, and sits down next to the boy, taking a sip and— it’s perfect. Even better than he makes it himself— and he makes  _ fantastic  _ tea.

He wants to make a joke out of it, something like, ‘ _ Did you drug this? Will I die?’  _ But Harry’s staring at him expectantly, his hands curled around his own mug— a mug that Louis'd gotten years ago, with a Santa Claus design on it despite it only being November. 

“S’good,” he says instead, nodding through another sip. He looks sincerely into Harry’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Harry beams, grinning wide until his dimples take up half his face.

All through the week, the same thing happens. Then, a week later, next to the mug of tea— a plate of flawlessly scrambled eggs on toast.

Then, on weeknights after shows when Louis has fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television while it plays hours of  _ The Jack Benny Program,  _ Harry starts leaving copies of comedy magazines on the coffee table. They must be stolen, Louis thinks, every time he wakes up to a new one with a different comedian’s face on the cover. Harry must reach his arm inside the boarded up newsstands in the middle of the night and snatch one along with a pack of Marlboro’s.

He doesn't mind at all, not when he peers inside the door left ajar to Harry’s bedroom and finds him curled up on the mattress like a kitten.

  
  


*

  
  
  


“Look!” Harry shouts as he barges through the front door one night. He’s early from the coffeehouse— usually doesn't get back until well after one or two in the morning. Now, he’s standing in the center of the room, grinning widely, clutching a crate in his arms. Louis cranes his neck over the couch to see, raising his eyebrows.

“Huh?”

Harry bounds into the living area, dropping the crate onto the sofa. He smells like coffee and cigarette smoke and alcohol, and there's no doubt in Louis’ mind that he's drunk. 

(Harry is rarely as talkative with Louis sober as he is when he’s drunk: this was true for the first month of staying with him. They do have conversations now, in the morning and evenings when they see each other; it's not as tense as it was in the beginning. But still, as it is, they don't  _ really _ talk— don't even really know that much about each other.)

“What’s in there?” Louis asks, dropping his comedy notebook next to him to peer over the crate. Harry glances up at him with wide, excited eyes, his bottom lip tucked between bunny teeth, biting back a grin. “What?”

“I stole records.” He winces when he says it. “Well…  _ borrowed _ ?”

Louis lets out a laugh. “Jesus. What'd you get?”

Harry nods excitedly, sitting on his heels on the couch, flipping through the records. “Well, I've got new stuff,” he starts to pull out records, Peter, Paul, and Mary and Bob Dylan and then newer stuff, a bit more Louis’ style, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks. “And some old,” Harry adds, slipping a copy of Sarah Vaughn’s  _ After Hours _ and Nat King Cole’s  _ Unforgettable _ . 

“And,” Harry says, trying to mask his excitement but failing terribly, “I've got this!” 

He hands Louis a vinyl wrapped in a white slip, nondescript, blank. There's no cover for it like the rest, and Louis stars at it in his hands before tilting his head at Harry curiously.

“Well, what is it?”

“Well, it's yours.” Harry sidles up next to him, wrapping all of the records except the one Louis’ holding in his arms and plopping them back into the crate. 

“What do you mean?”

Harry elbows his side gently. “It's yours. It's a copy of a show you did. The owner of the record shop has a whole room in the basement for his comedy records, and this one has your name on it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Harry drops his head onto Louis' shoulder, his curls tickling his neck, cheek warm as it squishes into his collarbone. “He said it was relatively recent. Like… last year, maybe. You said you've never had a tape of yourself. Maybe it’ll help you write your new sets, like, hearing who laughed and who didn’t. And stuff.” Harry shrugs, nuzzling further into Louis’ neck, showing an alarming array of affection and closeness that Louis’ never felt from the boy thus far.

“Erm. Thank you.” Louis squirms as Harry’s dry, bitten lips brush his jugular. “I appreciate it.”

Harry nods, staying burrowed in his neck for a moment before sitting up abruptly. He snatches the record out of Louis’ hands, but instead of going to put it on the record, he slips it back in the crate with the others and pulls out one of the newer records—  _ Aftermath _ , by the Rolling Stones. 

He pads over to the turntable next to the television, where all of Louis records are tucked in a shelf underneath. He's not too keen on collecting music like he used to be, only really stopping by if he hears something he particularly likes on the radio, or if he finds comedy records from the best of the best to take inspiration from.

As Harry lowers the needle onto the record and the crisp, London accent starts to fill the room, he shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over the back of a rocking chair. Underneath, he's wearing an Irish wool sweater with a white collared shirt underneath, his hair curling sweetly around his ears. He hasn't cut it in ages, letting it grow down to his chin, longer after he comes out of a shower and it's straight from the water dripping down his shoulders and biceps. 

He starts to dance to the song, gangly long limbs swaying like a go-go dancer. He's grinning at Louis, who’s watching amusedly from the couch, silently beckoning him to join.

_ Under my thumb the girl who once had me down _

_ Under my thumb the girl who once pushed me around _

“C’mon,” Harry says, his voice low and sultry, arms still swinging and snapping along to the instruments. He mouths along the next line, then adds, “You have to dance with me, I can't be alone.”

As Mick Jagger sings over twangy guitars and keyboards about his submissive partner, Louis sits with his palms pressed painfully into his knees, willing himself not to watch the way Harry’s eyes slip shut and his pink lips fall open as he sings along to the music. 

_ It's down to me, yes it is _

_ The way she does just what she's told _

_ Down to me, the change has come _

_ She's under my thumb _

With one more sway of Harry’s hips, Louis’ standing, coming closer, his arms crossed over his chest but head bobbing along. Harry notices, one eye cracking open, the corners of his lips turning up in a grin, and the modern dance he's doing becomes exaggerated. Arms swinging with fervor to the beat, fingers snapping, curls bouncing, looking like one of those groupie girls Louis will sometimes see in the crowd of an act on the Ed Sullivan show. Nothing like the patrons of a show like Harry’s, who sit patiently and listen to the music as if it's a lecture or a poem. 

“Y’look like a Chelsea Girl,” Louis says. 

Harry giggles, honest-to-God  _ giggles,  _ clicking his heels together in an effeminate dance as the song barrels on through it’s erotic verses.

_ Under my thumb a Siamese cat of a girl _

_ Under my thumb she's the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world _

Harry’s eyes finally open, staring innocently back at Louis. Chewing on his lip, blinking lazily, begging Louis to come closer. It’s hard  _ not _ to, is the thing. Louis hasn’t had this with anyone for a while— for a really long time. Not since he was still living overseas in England. Because— sure, he had Paige, but not like  _ that _ . Paige was akin to a roommate— Louis didn’t even have an ounce of feeling for her. Paige didn’t make him perfect tea and give him comedy magazines and dance in his living room and Paige sure as hell didn’t look like  _ this, _ right now...

It’s not  _ fair. _

_ It's down to me, oh that's what I said _

_ The way she talks when she's spoken to _

_ Down to me, the change has come _

_ She's under my thumb _

Harry's few centimeters of height on Louis don’t even matter, not as he leans forward, hanging his head so their noses brush, so they’re breathing each other’s air. Harry feels smaller, feels lighter when Louis dares to rest his hands low on his narrow hips. The confidence from his carefree hipster dancing simmers away when they’re this close, Harry curling back into his shell, falling pliant under Louis’ hands with his lip tucked between his teeth again, chewing nervously.

_ Take it easy babe _

_ Take it easy babe _

_ It feels alright _

_ Take it, take it easy, babe _

The song dies away, fading into the next one on the tracklist, but Louis can’t listen to it. All he hears is the sound of his heartbeat drumming through his chest. Licking his lips, he realizes what’s happened, how close they are, how intimate the moment was, and the panic starts to rise from his stomach.

His hands fall off of Harry’s waist but he doesn’t move more than a step away. “We shouldn’t,” he says, but doesn’t mean it, even when Harry pouts at him.

“Why not?”

Louis tries to find an explanation. He changes the subject instead. “Harry, what’d you have to drink before you came back?”

Harry shrugs. “Dunno.” His lips pull into a lazy smile. “Was in a pub down in the Village. The barkeep always gives me free drinks, ‘cause he’s enamored with me.”

A pang of jealousy festers through Louis’ chest. He rolls his eyes. “Everyone’s enamored with you. The fuckin’ Queen would probably be enamored with you, if she knew you.”

Harry tilts his head, his lips spreading into the most alluring smile Louis’ ever seen. “Not everyone. You’re not enamored with me. You’ve just rejected me.”

The voice inside Louis’ head is screaming at him, saying  _ “Yes I am! Yes I am!”  _ Instead, he falls back on the couch and says, “You’re absolutely right. If I’ve got to listen t’you chant another folk song my head might explode.”

Harry laughs delightfully, and starts to dance again, less enthusiastic now, his arms lowered, only swinging and snapping with hints of lethargy. He changes the record to a slower one when he’s finished, Sarah Vaughn, and lights a cigarette as he listens to it. Louis watches it all, offering commentary but maintaining a safe distance. If he comes too close, he’ll surely kiss Harry and muck up everything they have going— the steady, quiet friendship that’s built slowly over the last month.

When he feels his head loll to the side on the headrest, he wills himself to call it a night. 

He spares a last glance at Harry, curled up on the couch with his feet tucked underneath him. “Goodnight, Harry.” The boy perks up, cranes his neck to smile back at Louis, soft and quiet. 

“G’night.”

Sucking in a nervous breath, Louis nods, and disappears into his room.

  
  


*

  
  


“Alright, alright, so we’ve got the piss joke,” Liam’s saying, his eyeglasses slipping down the slope of his nose as he scratches his pen into a piece of notebook paper, “you’ve got the airport cart royalty joke—”

“That one’s good,” Louis notes, chuckling to himself. “...t _ he closest thing that we have to royalty in America are the people that get to ride in those little carts through the airport.  _ I love making fun of Americans.”

“I know,” Liam says noncommittally, more to shut Louis up before he continues listing the jokes Louis has for his set. 

Over the past two months, he’s refined the set to about fifty minutes, which is perfect. It leaves about ten to fifteen minutes of improvisation for every tour, time to switch things around and add in as Louis picks up jokes along the tour. After being in a rut for so long, it’s exhilarating to have a  _ funny  _ set, one that he actually loves and can play around with as frequently as he likes.

Liam says that he won’t be able to finalize the tour dates until July, which is, honestly, fine with Louis. It leaves him the rest of spring to practice. 

Winter had already passed swimmingly. Funnily enough, himself and Harry both had winter birthdays, almost a month apart. Neither of them had anywhere to go on Louis’, the night before Christmas, so they shared it together, in comfortable silence. Harry had bought a big cupcake from the bakery down the block, but there weren’t any of the miniature candles laying around the house, so Louis blew one out of a burning match pitched between Harry’s fingertips instead. Harry’d sung him happy birthday in a sweet, low voice, one that he only used when he was practicing songs to himself in his bedroom at night. On Harry’s day, Louis did the same.

There isn’t much else to say about their budding friendship— companionship— otherwise. They speak more often now; sometimes, they fall asleep together on the couch until one of them gets up to turn off the television. Harry still makes Louis tea and sometimes breakfast in the morning. Louis still makes Harry laugh with shitty throwaway jokes for practice in the evening. 

(Harry isn’t too hard to please or coax a laugh out of. It’s easy enough to say something stupid or make a silly face just to hear Harry’s loud, honking laughter, more like a shriek really. To watch him clap an embarrassed hand over his mouth, eyes glimmering as he waits for the next one. It’s so easy that Louis does it often. 

Maybe it’s more for himself than for Harry.)

Speak of the devil, he thinks, and snaps back into reality as the door to the apartment clicks open and Harry trudges inside. Noticing Liam’s presence, Harry’s eyes widen towards Louis. 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company,” Harry murmurs apologetically, shouldering the guitar off his back and resting it on the hardwood floor next to the door. “Should I— I can go down to the park, or something, if I’m, like, interrupting…”   
  


Liam’s head snaps up from his notebook, eyes flitting between Louis and Harry.

“Of course not, love,” Louis says. “We’re just going over my set for the tour I’ve told you about. Wanna see?”   
  


Harry hesitates before giving a small nod and pads toward the couch, sitting timidly next to Louis. “You’re doing the airplane cart joke?” he asks animatedly, entire body perking up.

Louis reclines on the couch, letting his arms spread out over the headrest. Stares at Harry, engrossed in the way he’s grinning down at the outspread notebook where all of Louis’ monologues are written out.

“‘Course. That one was funny, that,” Louis replies. “You laughed hard at that one the first time.”

Harry blushes, tucking into himself bashfully as he flips the page in the notebook. Across from them, Liam is peering over his glasses at Louis, giving him a look as if to say,  _ What the fuck is this friendship? _ To be truthful, Louis hasn't yet put into words how they've started to act around each other. It's probably still shocking to Liam that him and Harry even tolerate each other, let alone live under the same roof after one singular night of helplessness. 

He isn't sure what he's gonna tell Liam when— if anything happens between them. The desire Louis feels bubbling up in his stomach whenever Harry so much as looks his way, the enamored pain in his chest when Harry leaves one of his wordless, silent, but genuine acts of adoration for Louis to find around the apartment (the comedy magazines, new records, books, things Louis has expressed interest in that Harry has remembered; it happens even when Louis says he needs a packet of cigarettes, and that he'd like to start smoking Chesterfields instead— the next day, a pack lay outside his bedroom door). None of it is a secret anymore.

He’s just not sure what to do about it, is the thing.

  
  


*

  
  


He’s left with four and a half months, from March to July, to do practically nothing. It wouldn’t kill him, Liam says, if he went out and scoured the club life, looked at the competition— the other comedians like himself. And, even better, for the days to go by faster, get a part-time job. Like many things Louis pulls through in his life, he half-asses it: he’s gotten out of the house, at least, a few nights a week. He’s gone to raunchy clubs with comedy acts akin to his own; he’s gone to the high-end ones where the comedy acts wear expensive suits and cologne you can smell from the crowd. He’s even booked tickets, for May and June, to see Broadway shows that the entertainment section of  _ The New York Times  _ has been gushing over, and seen a few new films in the cinema:  _ What's New Pussycat?, A Hard Day’s Night ( _ in which he sat surrounded by fifty other teenage girls in the theatre), and a few Jerry Lewis ones to fill the time.

The spring brings about change that Louis isn’t sure how to cope with. Harry’s been slowing down a bit, where he’s usually on fire. His routinely sweeping of coffeehouses, where he earns most of his (little) revenue, has dwindled. Where he once was gone every night, now he's home three or four nights a week. 

Louis knows why: he's stuck. He can't get out of the hole that is the Village; the unwavering crowds, never changing scenery. Cobblestone streets and tall brick red buildings; the park benches that creak where you sit, the homeless men who all look the same. Everything is grounded, built into the foundation. Harry is a flower trying to grow between the cracks in the sidewalk. He needs something better.

“Have you ever heard of the Newport Folk Festival?” Louis blurts out one night. They're sharing beers, passing a cigarette between them as the transistor radio plays a scratchy, out-of-tune pop station: songs he recognizes now after seeing a few trendy new Beatles films— he’ll never admit it, though. 

Harry tilts his head. “No, haven’t.”

“Well,” Louis says, passing the cigarette back and blowing out a cloud of smoke that muffles the already dense air between them, “it’s this festival they do in Rhode Island. And, erm. All of the folkies go, like, play their music every year— new and old stuff, like you.”

Harry’s staring at the side of his face; he can feel it like a sixth sense now, knows exactly when Harry can't contain himself, can't look away. It's one of those things he's just grown accustomed to— shifting and seeing Harry’s tired green eyes watching him lazily, but with some sort of hidden intent, as though he has a secret he wants to share. When he catches him, Harry doesn't try to hide it. Often, his lips will quirk up, amused at the prospect of being caught, anticipating what will come next. Louis rarely does anything: sometimes, he'll lean over and pull on Harry’s cheek and call him silly if it's nighttime and they're alone; other times, he’ll bite an irritated, “What?” at him, and regret it immediately when Harry’s eyes fall down dejectedly, like a vase of flowers that’s been knocked off the mantle. Mostly, he'll just spread his lips into the faintest hint of a comforting smile, barely anything, and turn away again, saying nothing.

“Oh yeah?” Harry’s saying, a bit disinterestedly, but that may just be the morbid tone of his speaking voice, low and monotonous.

“Yeah. I know some— well, I've heard of a lot of singers going there, like, every summer.” He looks up, passes the cigarette back, then declines on the couch, feigning comfort and nonchalance. As he takes a swig of the aluminum can of beer in his hand, which tastes like pure shit compared to the stuff he used to get back in the UK, he glances over at Harry, curled up on the couch, completely facing him, leaning his face into the arm propped up on the headrest. Demure; coy.

“You know a lot of other folk singers?” 

And that's not the  _ point,  _ Louis wants to say, he's just trying to help him, for Christ’s sake. He really doesn’t want to admit right now that he’d seen a flyer for this thing in the last record shop he went to, and immediately thought of Harry. But the younger man has a knack for turning conversations over, showing their underbellies, the things Louis doesn't want to say.

“I mean—  _ no,  _ I've  _ heard  _ of them, like—” He sighs, exasperated. “An old friend of mine was, like, into that stuff, and he used to go up every summer, alright? I don't know any other— I've never been friends with, like. Any folk singers or anything. I mean, except—”

Harry lets out a chuckle, warm and sweet, and shuffles closer on the couch until his knees press into the side of Louis’ thigh. “I get it,” he says, eyes sparkling with mischief. It's hard for Louis to look away, now, but he forces himself instead to stare into his lap, where he’s gripping his can of beer with a renewed fervor, and a little over, where the smoke is drifting from the cigarette clutched between Harry’s pretty, long fingers. 

“You know,” Harry says casually, blinking. “I'm quite content with just playing in the Village. I mean, s’kinda great. All of the coffeehouse owners, like, love me, and so, it's not so bad, innit?”

Louis nods, suddenly wanting this conversation to be over. He doesn't realize he’s bouncing his knee now, anxious and rustling the blanket he had loosely strewn over his thighs for the cold of the apartment.

“Plus, sooner or later, Niall’s gonna hire me to be a paid act at the Gaslight, I think.”

Louis’ head shoots up.  _ What?  _ That doesn't sound like Niall at all; that defeats the whole point of a basket house. Was Harry out of his mind?

“Then,” Harry continues with his fantasy, his voice sounding dreamy, eyes out of focus, “someone'll come along and give me a record deal, and I'll be famous.”

He says nothing about this, doesn't bring it up. Just lets them drop the subject, sit back in the couch, chainsmoke, and listen as the radio station whirred on the decade’s newest obsession, a twangy rock and roll song that absolutely doesn't sound anything like Harry’s songs.

  
  


*

  
  


As soon as he steps into the seedy coffeehouse, which he hasn’t visited in months (Not since the morning he saw Harry sleeping there. God, it feels like ages ago now.), he regrets it. He’s just— he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He thinks, as an afterthought, that he’s too nosy; he needs too much of every bit of information to have. Also, he’s too nice for this. 

When his eyes adjust to the dim lighting, past the thick wooden pillars scattered throughout the basement and over the heads of patrons in the sparse crowd, he doesn’t see Niall behind the bar. Instead, a tall dark-skinned woman, dressed in all black with a roll-neck sweater that makes her look about ten-foot-two, is pouring a drink for a man at the bar. Puzzledly, Louis approaches her.

“S’Niall here?”

She looks at him curiously, tilting her head. “Who?”

“Niall? The Irish lad?”

The bartender stares blankly at him, rolling her lips together thoughtfully. “Hmm.”

Slightly piqued, and a little more than desperate, Louis says, “He used to be the manager? Babe, you’ve got to know. He can’t’ve been gone for that long.”

It comes to her, suddenly. “Oh!” she exclaims. “Right. Oh, well he doesn’t work here, anymore. I’m afraid he sold the Gaslight to us a few months ago, honey.”

Cursing under his breath, Louis shakes his head, looking around desperately, as if he’ll find Niall sitting in one of the booths. I mean, come  _ on,  _ how hard could it be to find this kid? Unless, of course, he lives outside of Manhattan; that was very plausible. Ugh, Niall’s probably from Staten Island— or, God-forbid,  _ Jersey City _ . 

On the small stage, which has changed drastically in style from the last time he saw it, now adorned with red velvet curtains as a backdrop, the new name, he presumes, of the club hanging from the ceiling in white letters,  _ Bop City!  _ There stands a large black piano, a tall modern microphone stand, a drum set, and— a rock’n’roll band, with trendy haircuts, plucking away at their guitars. The frontman, skinny and pale with outgrown, straight hair, is singing loudly a cover of a song Louis recognizes from Harry playing it on the radio and dancing around the living room at night. He frowns deeply, but listens anyway.

“If you want, I can ask my manager to get his number for you. I’m sure he’s still around. Unless he moved away. You said he was Irish?” He turns to the bartender, fish mouthing for a second, before shaking his head.

“No, babe, that’s all right. Thank you, anyway. Good luck to you guys,” he tells her.

What the fuck he’s gonna tell Harry, he doesn’t know.

  
  


*

  
  


“Harry?” he calls out as he steps into the flat, tossing his keys on the kitchen counter. The lights are on in the living room, the window open and letting in a draft of cool air that sends shivers down Louis’ arms. (He gets cold easily.)

After closing it and locking the window, he calls out again. “Harry? You home?”

“In here!” Harry calls from his bedroom. Odd. Harry doesn’t usually hide away in there, not while Louis’ home, at least.

When he approaches the room, the sound of Billie Holiday’s  _ “Crazy He Calls Me”  _ sifts through the closed door, sweet and alluring. He knocks, twice, a warning, then twists the handle. It falls open easily, the hinges squeaky as it goes.

“Harry, I’ve got to tell you something.”

Across the room, at a vintage wooden vanity with a large mirror, big enough for Louis to see his own reflection behind his, Harry sits, donned in what looks like the fur coat he’d gifted to him the night he moved in. Harry isn’t as startled as Louis is; isn’t even pleasantly surprised. He’s been expecting this, Louis thinks, because he looks over his shoulder, his chin pressing into the shearling lapels of the coat, and shoots him the loveliest gaze he thinks he’s ever seen.

“Hi,” he says quietly.

Louis knows, and is thoroughly embarrassed of, how his voice breaks when he says, quieter, “ _ Harry _ .”

Because Harry’s stood up from the pretty vanity— and— he’s wearing a white silk slip, high on his narrow hips, peeking out through the coat and falling to the middle of his calves, where it would fall to a woman’s ankles. Around his neck is fastened a string of pearls, inexpensive ones— the one’s a mother might get from a discount department store, instead of passed down from her grandmother. The pearls are opaque and shiny, blending into the pale skin of his collarbones. His face—  _ God,  _ his face— is bare, save for the most minute brush of rouge high on his cheekbones, little enough for Louis to wonder if he’s just flushed. His eyes are staring at Louis, expectant, waiting for an answer; waiting for judgement. Enough so that at Louis’ silenced shock, he seems to curl in on himself, anxious.

When he finally does move, Louis gets closer. “Oh, my god.  _ Harry.  _ What— where’d you get all this?” he asks, watching as Harry takes the lip he was biting from between his teeth and mumbles, “She left them here,” pointing meekly to the opened cardboard boxes of Paige’s old things, now Harry’s. Louis had forgotten they were even there.

“Wanted to play dress up,” Harry says shyly, smiling with his lips closed, soft and tired. 

Louis steps closer, palms outstretched, daring to touch but holding back, hovering until Harry takes him by the wrists and places his hands in between the opening of his coat, settling them on his hips nervously. His head is tilted down, chin tucked into his neck, so that when he glances up to Louis he’s infinitely more coy, more shy, more flirty than ever. His eyes, ever-so-innocent, ask questions, grant permission, pull him in.

  
“Can I—” Louis cuts himself off, thumbs rubbing into the seam of the silk slip where it meets Harry’s warm, pale skin just above.

“Please,” Harry whispers.

When they kiss for the first time, Louis feels like a dead man. He feels like he could just melt into his shoes, right there, until nothing’s left but a puddle of a missed comedian. He’s pretty sure he would, pretty sure that’s the reason Harry’s hands come up to cradle his jaw, big palms covering his entire cheeks. He grounds him, holds him closer, if that’s even possible. Harry tastes like chewing gum, like the talc powder that must’ve fallen onto his lips. He smells of faint perfume, honey and bergamot and lily-of-the-valley. He smells of bar soap and the shaving cream he’s stolen from Louis, always wanting a shaven jaw, hating when the sparse hairs show up above his lips if he waits too long. (“I’d like it if it was full, like, one of those big moustaches you see on those handsome men on the covers of magazines.” Harry’d hum to himself, staring at his reflection in the mirror in the hall. “I don’t like the stubble on me. I like it on you, not me.” He’d lean over and brush his fingers on the stubble along Louis’ jaw, smiling. “Only you.”)

“Harry,” he mumbles into his lips when they pull apart for air. His eyes blink open, hands gripping tighter onto his hips, enough to where he can feel something beneath the slip. And fuck if he doesn’t want to know what it is. 

“You’re so pretty, baby,” he says instead of asking. He feels Harry’s lips spread into a bashful grin. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. The  _ prettiest _ .” 

Harry gasps as if he's a failed actress in an old black and white film. “Lou, are you— dare I say—  _ enamored _ with me?”

Louis laughs, actually laughs, and says, “I can’t believe you,” and trails his palms up and down the bare sides of the chest beneath Harry’s coat. The skin there is warm, tender at his hips, thin at his ribs. “You can't be real.”

“Lou,” he says, softer. When Louis brushes a thumb over his exposed nipple, he gasps. “ _ Lou. _ ”

“No brassiere?” Louis asks, biting back a playful grin. He lets it loose when Harry shakes his head, playing long. “Naughty girl.”

Harry lets out a broken half-moan, half-sigh, slumping forward to press his lips again to Louis’ with a renewed fervor. He’s desperate now, desiring, and the song on the record speaks to them, Billie Holiday’s sultry voice, singing,  _ “There is no greater thrill than what you bring to me, no sweeter song than that you sing to me.” _

“S’get this off, honey,” Louis murmurs, hands coming up to trace Harry’s bare shoulders, letting the coat fall to the vanity chair behind him.

“Yes,” Harry whispers back, nodding into him. “Off, off.” 

He’s pale underneath, the yellow light from the vanity and night table lamps casting a sentimental glow over his skin. His curls kiss his shoulders prettily, clean from a shower. 

“What’d you get all dressed up for, Harry?”

Harry’s eyes, which he hadn’t noticed had been screwed shut, open, blinking wide at Louis. “For you. Did it f’you.” He takes Louis' hands again, presses them firmly onto his hips, lower than the waistline of the slip.

Louis squeezes there, thumbs pressing into the dip of his hipbones, prominent even with the skirt on. He just— God, he looks so pretty like this, in his white pearls, white slip. He looks just about ethereal when Louis pushes him gently to lay on the bed, spread out over the pale pink-and-turquoise quilt. He sounds absolutely broken when Louis cups the half-hard bulge between his legs and he lets out a low whine, throwing his head back as if even the faintest touch can set him off.

“I know, honey,” Louis’ whispering, fingers coming to toy with the waistline of the slip. His hips must be  _ tiny,  _ Louis thinks, enough to fit into a woman’s slip. He thinks he might be obsessed with it; obsessed with the way Harry’s hips taper off to skinny, knock-kneed legs. Obsessed with the way they spread up and out to a broad, broad chest, broad shoulders, and strong, broad back.

He glances up to Harry’s eyes, wide and pleading for more, and peels off the slip, pulling it down his long legs, careful not to rip the sensitive lace. Underneath, he reveals what looks like a poor attempt at Harry squeezing into a tiny pair of women’s lingerie, shapewear, high on his hips but much too tight. The white lace presses tightly into the pale, milky skin of his thighs, his slim love handles pressing out subtly over the sides, the red irritated skin peeking out. The white elastic garters hang, unfastened to anything, swaying by Harry’s thighs. 

“The,” Harry starts, clearing his throat, “the stockings in there didn’t fit.” He frowns, looking down at his own long legs, much too long for nylon stockings made to fit someone 5’2. 

“Beautiful,” Louis assures him, “Y’look so good like this, darling.”

Harry covers his face with his palms, cheeks burning, and Louis presses his own palms to the exposed skin of his thighs, the light hair there soft against his fingers. Goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch as he struggles to pull down the knickers, and Harry sighs, legs falling open around where Louis’ kneeling.

“I want you,” Harry breaths, his hands draping over Louis’ neck and pulling him close. “Want to be g— want to be good, f’you.”

Louis feels his heart stop, then pound ruthlessly against his ribs, feels it ache, as he stares down at the boy spread out beneath him. “You  _ are  _ good, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes aren’t coy; they aren’t flirty or demure. They’re genuine, searching Louis’ own, asking the question.  _ Do you like me? Do you like this?  _ Louis wants to scream it, wants to prove it to him. He does; he leans down and presses their lips together, firm and tender, filled with all of the things Louis didn’t say before.

“I want you, too,” Louis murmurs. “Wanted this for so long, darling.”

It’s when he starts to suck the sensitive pale skin beneath Harry’s jaw, and when he wraps a hand around Harry’s cock, watches the way Harry’s mouth falls open in a silent moan, a silent plea, that Louis realizes— truly believes— how much he wants this. They weren’t just words that fell out of his mouth; it sure as all hell wasn’t a joke to Louis. It’s Harry.

It’s Harry, who comes when Louis twists his wrist and presses a firm finger to his hole, shouting a high whine of Louis’ name— his legs shaking and kicking out, hips rolling. It’s Harry, who slumps back, shivering as Louis pulls him through it until he can’t anymore, until he jerks out of his touch and falls to his side and trembles for seconds, pressing his thighs closed as he catches his breath with the force of the high. It’s Harry, who gets sleepy post-orgasm, but urgent, sitting up after recouping and begging Louis to let him get his mouth around him, to return the favor. Harry, who smiles until his dimples show when Louis says it’s not a favor at all; he wants this, he always has. Harry who does it anyway, shy and sweet but good, so good, the best, even when Louis fists a hand in his hair because he just can’t help himself, even when he pulls off every few seconds to catch his breath. Harry, who lets Louis call him his good boy, his good girl, lets him press a thumb to his nipple or play with the string of pearls around his neck against where Louis had sucked a mark into his pale skin. Harry, who murmurs, “I think I love you,” almost inaudibly into his skin after Louis comes, his teeth pressing coy bites into his hipbones and the tops of his thighs. Harry, who folds himself up, makes himself small, pulls Louis’ hand to rest over his waist as they slip under the covers.

They stay like that, curled around each other as Billie Holiday sings sorrowful songs into the heavy air. The sheets smell like Harry when Louis presses his head into the cotton pillow. Harry smells like Louis when he dips his nose into his neck, tickles him slightly while doing so. He turns in Louis’ arms, his fingers tracing lines into Louis’ stomach as he lay on his back. 

“What’d you want to tell me?” Harry asks quietly. “Before, when you came home, like.”

Louis’ stomach drops. “Oh— erm.”

Harry lifts his head, eyes suddenly filled with concern. “What?” he asks, voice low and scratchy, and Louis wonders for a second if it’ll always sound like that after he sucks Louis off— if he’ll be able to sing with that voice. “S’everything okay?”

“Harry, the Gaslight’s closed. They— they’re not a baskethouse anymore, darling,” Louis says, not wanting to meet Harry’s eyes. “I’m sorry— I had no idea, until tonight, I—”

“You went down there?”

Louis glances down. Harry’s not mad, not shocked; his finger, which he notices has a light sheen of nail lacquer on the thin nail beds, is still tracing circles into Louis’ bare chest.

“Yeah, I did.” He breathes in shakily. “M’sorry, Harry, I know that was your best club— I mean, it must’ve just happened, I’m so— I’m sorry.”

“I knew,” Harry says.

Louis blinks. “What?”

“I knew it was closed. S’been like that, um. For a bit. Since January.” He sniffles. Shakes his head, brushes the curls out of his eyes. “I wasn't gonna tell you. I don't—” His voice breaks. “Lou, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

Louis’ hand trails up to Harry’s bare shoulders, holding him there to comfort him. In his mind, he wonders where the hell Harry’s been going this whole time. There weren’t so many coffeehouses anymore for folk musicians, not now that it’s ‘66. Now that Louis thinks about it, it’s come to the point where the Gaslight was probably the biggest folk club in the Village, as much as that meant. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Harry repeats, whispering, his voice low, eyes glassy. Louis wipes away a tear from under his eye with the pad of his thumb.

He grips Harry tighter, pulling him into his chest, pressing a kiss on top of his curls. “Harry,” he says softly, hoping he sounds comforting, “it’s okay. We’re gonna figure it out.”

God, he just wants to make Harry laugh. It’s all he wants, especially as Harry’s sobbing wetly into his neck, quiet and stifled. 

“Hey,” he pulls back, searching Harry’s wet eyes. “Wanna know something?”

Harry sniffles and nods.

“When I first saw you there, it was at one of my shows, at the Gaslight, right?” Harry nods. “Wanna know how  _ enamored _ I was with you? From the very beginning?”

“How?” Harry asks, curious now.

Louis grins, cupping Harry’s cheek with his palm. “I said some stupid joke, I honestly don’t even remember which— but you laughed so loud, this fucking fantastic laugh. I’d never heard anything like it, honestly. And I  _ loved  _ it. Really, all I wanted for the rest of the show was just to hear you laugh like that, again and again.”

Harry lets out a soft giggle, wiping his nose with the back of his hand before pressing a soft kiss to Louis’ collarbone. “Thank you.”

“No, thank  _ you _ . For laughing. I bet the joke wasn’t even that funny. It was probably something about wanking, honestly.”

Harry giggles again, smushing his cheek into Louis’ skin, until their breaths soften, until they drift to sleep, wrapped around each other.

  
  


*

  
  
  
  


**_Three Months Later._ **

  
  


“Y’ready, baby?” Louis asks, glancing over at Harry from the driver’s seat. Harry’s knee is bouncing anxiously, and he’s biting his lip as he stares out at the whir of green trees out the car window. New England is syrupy sweet in the summer, the grass greener than green, rocky roads endless until they turn into dirt ones, wildflowers lining each path as if welcoming dirty New Yorkers. Louis loves it.

He loves it when he reaches out to hold Harry’s hand, one still perched on the steering wheel as they navigate the long winding roads to Newport. Harry’s hand is big and warm, fingers curling around Louis’ as if it’s second nature at this point. It is, to be fair; it’s second nature to be touching Harry always, nonstop. They might be a little co-dependent.

“I’m jus’ nervous,” Harry says. “All those people have probably been playing— or listening, whatever— forever. I’m just— dunno. Nervous.”

Louis hums. Ahead of them, Liam’s Ford Mustang rolls on, a trailblazer through the forest.

“Why don’t you play me something, darling?”

“Like what?” 

“Anything. Something you wrote?”

“‘Kay,” Harry answers, reaching behind to pull his guitar from the backseat. He spends time tuning it, even though he’d gone out and bought a new one a month ago when Louis got him the spot at the festival (Well, Liam did it, really. It was Louis’ idea, though.). He’d been so ecstatic that when they got home, he didn’t stop kissing Louis’ face the whole night. 

Louis is stupidly in love with him.

As Harry starts to pluck a sweet tune in open D, Louis grips the steering wheel, smiling as he drives, grinning as the lyrics tumble out of Harry’s lips.

_ My old man _

_ He's a singer in the park _

_ He's a walker in the rain _

_ He's a dancer in the dark _

_ We don't need no piece of paper _

_ From the city hall _

_ Keeping us tied and true _

_ My old man _

_ Keeping away my blues _

_ He's my sunshine in the morning _

_ He's my fireworks at the end of the day _

_ He's the warmest chord I ever heard _

_ Play that warm chord, play and stay, baby _

_ But when he's gone _

_ Me and them lonesome blues collide _

_ The bed's too big _

_ The frying pan's too wide _

_ Then he comes home _

_ And he takes me in his loving arms _

_ And he tells me all his troubles _

_ And he tells me all my charms _

_ We don't need no piece of paper _

_ From the city hall _

_ Keeping us tied and true, no _

_ My old man _

_ Keeping away my lonesome blues… _

  
  
  


The End.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hii. So, this took me forever to write, considering it's only 20k worth of words. I hope you like it anyway.
> 
> Before any angry British person tells me off: I apologize for the constant switching between using British and American lingo/terms, if you noticed any. Also, I have no clue if the UK comedy scene and the NYC comedy scene are alike at all, as mentioned by Liam in one scene. I'd like to imagine they have similar humor, being a New Yorker myself. Though, from my own knowledge, the UK focuses more on class differences when making satire (Understandable, because of the issues those countries face) whereas NYC focuses much more on race/ethnicity/religion. 
> 
> Anyway, here are some things I pulled inspiration from:
> 
> Marvelous Mrs Maisel, obviously for Louis, and for the setting of the story. It was a crucial part in crafting the idea, but not so much the plot. 
> 
> Lenny Bruce, comedian from the 50s/60s. I stole substantial jokes from him, most notably the pissing one. That's just me not-being a comedian and growing lazy, though. Sue me. 
> 
> Also, I stole one mini-joke about airplane carts from Jerry Seinfeld. That's funnier if a British person told it.
> 
> Inside Llewyn Davis, specifically for Harry's side, as it's about a folksinger. The scene where Louis heckles Harry is pulled from this film. ("I hate fuckin' folk music!")
> 
> Joni Mitchell for the two songs Harry sings. In this, I say Harry wrote them. All I Want and My Old Man, the latter of which Harry tweeted the lyrics to, like, seven years ago. 
> 
> The Rolling Stones song Under My Thumb, specifically to show the dynamic between them, and Harry's submission where earlier in the story, he was less so.
> 
> The sheepskin coat Louis gifts Harry is the same one Harry owns irl. He's worn it out once or twice with a sweatshirt underneath, but I quite like the idea of him wearing it with a string of pearls and a slip, because he'd look very pretty.
> 
> Oh, also, the Gaslight was a real place in Greenwich Village. Lots of people got their first starts there (Bob Dylan, Bill Cosby (ew), Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen.) It has, like the rest of the Village, some of the coolest history in my opinion. I did, however, make up the idea that folk music dwindled by '66. Dylan had popularized folk-rock by then, which traditional folksingers criticized him for, and in my opinion traditional folk did sort of die down in the wake of Dylan's enlightenment. Some artists persisted, obviously, like Joni, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young... Yadda yadda yadda. You get the deal. 
> 
> That's all I can really think of adding.
> 
> Drop a comment, let me know what you think !!!


End file.
